Prak Saran

Technical Officer (Cambodia)

About me

Born in a remote area with a personal passion for biodiversity conservation and environmental protection, I applied for a scholarship in Biology at the Royal University of Phnom Penh after finishing my high school in Takeo province. I graduated in 2007 and started my first career as Community Based Ecotourism Project Assistant with Wildlife Alliance based in Koh Kong province. My work focuses on community capacity building, raising awareness and promoting environmental protection and conservation through sustainable livelihood development and ecotourism activities. I worked with Wildlife Alliance for three years and then I moved to work with Song Saa Foundation as Community Liaison Officer based in Koh Rong Island in Sihanoukvile province. I led five main components of the programme: promoting education, sustainable livelihood development, solid waste management, environmental protection and conservation. Furthermore, I was also involved in promoting conservation, environmental protection, sustainable community livelihood development and responsible tourism activities with guests of Song Saa Private Island too. After about twelve years, around 300 people ranging from children, local people, authorities and tourists have received my various training and awareness raising in environmental protection, waste management, biodiversity conservation and responsible tourism. They have been heavily involved in protecting their surrounding environment, making their area clean and conserving the biodiversity of Koh Rong Archipelago. Evidently, tourists have been satisfied with our management and enjoyed its natural resources on this island.

With my deep passion for conservation and environmental protection and seeing that WWT has its vision, mission and goal to protect the environment and conserve nature, I have decided to join WWT as Technical Officer and I hope to use my knowledge, experience and skills to achieve the goal, mission and vision of WWT.

My role

My major roles are to protect wetlands and conserve their biodiversity through community development, community engagement, technical research, monitoring and evaluation and restoration, including the cooperation with partner NGOs, government institutions, local authorities, communities and relevant stakeholders. To succeed in planning and executing these amazing tasks, I go to the fields to collect data, organize relevant meetings, workshops and consultations with all above relevant stakeholders and communities. I also need to coordinate and lead many related field and office tasks too.

Experience and interests

• Budget management and administration works
• Community engagement, awareness raising and capacity building
• Using GPS
• Ecotourism and responsible tourism work
• Community development and conservation work
• Establishing community based organizations (CBOs)