Place

Yeak Laom

បឹងយក្សឡោម

Yeak Laom is a volcanic crater lake in the forest near Banlung, in Ratanakiri province in northeastern Cambodia.

Yeak Laom (បឹងយក្សឡោម) is a volcanic crater lake in the forest near Banlung, in Ratanakiri province in northeastern Cambodia.[1][2] The Tampuan communities who live around it hold the lake sacred, and in 1998 a committee of their members took a 25-year lease to manage it.[3][2] Cambodianess describes it as Cambodia's first community-based ecotourism site.[4]

The lake

Yeak Laom lies in Yak Laom, which Into Cambodia lists as a quarter of Banlung city, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the town center.[1][2] It formed through volcanic activity around 700,000 years ago.[5][3] Its shore makes a nearly perfect circle, and its clear green water is ringed by forest.[1][5] The lake measures 750 meters (2,460 feet)[1] or 800 meters (2,620 feet) across,[2][3] and is about 48 meters (157 feet)[1] or 50 meters (164 feet) deep.[3] Its shoreline runs about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles).[3] The forest around it is rich in plant and animal life.[3]

Beliefs and legend

In 2010 about 81 percent of the people in the five villages of Yeak Laom commune, Chri, Lapou, Sill, Lon and Phnum, were Tampuan.[3] The Tampuan regard the lake as a sacred place, home to the spirits of the land, the water and the forest.[3][2] They make offerings to these spirits at rice planting and harvest, and when someone in a family falls ill.[5] Custom asks for quiet at the lake, and visitors are expected not to quarrel or gamble there.[2][5] A Tampuan story tells that a giant dug into the ground to retrieve his daughter, who had run away with a suitor he did not accept, and that rain filled the hole he left.[5] The lake also appears in Cambodian songs and stories.[2]

History

After the civil war of the Khmer Rouge years, soldiers occupied the lake area.[2] Jeremy Ironside, writing for the ICCA Consortium in 2023, writes that in 1993 or 1994 a company set up a karaoke bar and a brothel by the lake.[2] It caused a national scandal and offended the elders of the villages; the bar closed after the King and the Prime Minister intervened.[2] Until 1994 the provincial departments of tourism and environment managed the area.[3] In May 1995 the provincial governor, Kep Chuk Tema, placed the lake in a provincial protected area, to try to protect some of its forest from a forest concession of 1.4 million hectares that covered the whole province.[2][3] The protected area covered more than 5,000 hectares (12,400 acres), with a core zone of 300 hectares (740 acres) around the lake.[3]

In 1996 the governor asked a Canadian agency for development research for help with the protected area.[3] The agency and a United Nations Development Programme project worked with Tampuan leaders and built a cultural and environmental center, a parking area, stairs to the shore, swimming platforms and nature trails.[3] In September 1997 the villagers elected six Tampuan members to a committee to manage the core zone, the Yeak Laom Lake Conservation and Recreation Committee.[3] In August 1998 the provincial government leased the core zone to the committee for 25 years, subject to a positive evaluation.[3][2][5] Ven Seyhah wrote in 2017 that the committee answered to the commune's development committee and, with village elders and the provincial government, set the rules for the use of the zone's water, forest, bamboo and fish.[3] Cambodianess describes Yeak Laom as the first community-based ecotourism site in Cambodia, followed by about 70 more across the country.[4]

Ironside's account describes several attempts by outside interests to gain control of the lake.[2] In 2008 the provincial government approved a concession of 500 hectares (1,240 acres) for ecotourism on Phnom Youl, a mountain 5 kilometers (3 miles) east of the lake. Sixty-five families of Yeak Laom lost their farmland, and the company's plans for hotels, a casino and cable cars depended on taking over the lake.[2] The committee refused and the company left.[2] As of 2023, Phnom Youl remained closed off.[2] In 2018 a new provincial governor told the committee that the lake would go to a Chinese company for 75 years, to build a five-star hotel.[2] The central government rejected the plan and directed the Ministry of Environment to make the lake a community protected area.[2] In April 2019 the ministry approved the lake's registration as a community natural protected area, to preserve its natural resources and culture and to support ecotourism.[6] In May 2022 the same governor asked the lake committee to hold community meetings on handing the lake to a company as a concession; as of 2023 the meetings had not taken place.[2] Ironside writes that the provincial agreement gave the communities a fragile form of tenure, that the national recognition they needed did not follow, and that their claim has been questioned since.[2]

Visiting

Swimming is allowed in the lake, and life jackets are provided.[1] A path of about 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) runs around the shore, and a small museum presents Tampuan culture.[1] Stalls at the entrance sell handicrafts made by the Indigenous peoples who live nearby, and traditional Tampuan clothing can be rented for photographs.[1][3] Ironside writes that the minimal entrance fees went to the upkeep and repair of the tourist facilities, and that the communities, with outside support, built a traditional meeting house by the lake to discuss its affairs.[2]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Into Cambodia, Ratanakiri Province (undated)
  2. ↑ 2.00 2.01 2.02 2.03 2.04 2.05 2.06 2.07 2.08 2.09 2.10 2.11 2.12 2.13 2.14 2.15 2.16 2.17 2.18 2.19 2.20 ICCA Consortium, Jeremy Ironside, Community Management of Yeak Loam Lake (September 20, 2023)
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 3.15 3.16 Ven Seyhah, Residents' Attitude toward Community-Based Ecotourism in Cambodia: Based on Two Cases of Yeak Laom and Chi Phat Communes, PhD dissertation, Nagoya University (2017)
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Cambodianess, François Camps, After COVID-19, Ecotourism on the Rise (June 14, 2022)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 Cambodge Mag, Ratanakiri: The Cambodia Time Has Not Yet Caught Up With (July 6, year not printed)
  6. ↑ Open Development Cambodia, from The Phnom Penh Post, Ministry approves protected area status for Yeak Laom Lake in Ratanakkiri (April 29, 2019)
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This page was last edited on 17 October 2026, at 00:30.