30 years after Khmer Rouge, killing fields, Cambodia grows new generation of art conservators

Metals conservator Huot Samnang at the National Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is part of a new generation of art conservators and educated professionals rising from the ashes of the Khmer Rouge, who, in the killing fields of the 1970s, killed most of the country's intellectuals and educated elite because they were considered a threat to the Maoist regime. (Photo: Irwin Loy)

The Khmer Rouge caused the deaths – by killing, starvation, and disease – of an estimated 2 million Cambodians, including an entire generation of art conservators. With the killing fields in the history books, skilled professionals are now reemerging.

June 12, 2010
By Irwin Loy, Contributor
The Christian Science Monitor
Phnom Penh, Cambodia

• A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.

In a side wing of Phnom Penh’s National Museum, Noeun Von is slowly bringing a piece of his culture back to life.

He casts a cloth over a bronze Buddha, removing the dust that has settled on the figure. When this piece was first unearthed, the figure’s head had been detached from its body. But now the piece has been meticulously repaired, allowing the intricate details on the centuries-old bronze to be revealed.

Mr. Von’s handiwork, and that of his colleagues in the five-year-old metals conservation laboratory, will be on display this year in the United States as part of “Gods of Angkor,” a major exhibition of the work of Khmer bronze casters hosted by the Smithsonian Institution.

More than a presentation of Cambodia’s precious art, however, the exhibition will also shine a spotlight on the skilled professionals working to preserve this country’s culture.

An entire generation of conservators was lost in the killing fields during the brutal Khmer Rouge regime. After the Khmer Rouge was ousted from power in 1979, preservation of invaluable Khmer artifacts was left largely to the foreign conservators who ventured into the country. Slowly, however, that has changed.

Through a training partnership with the Smithsonian’s Freer and Sackler galleries, a new crop of young museum professionals has risen to replace the lost generation.

“We can run the lab and do the conservation by ourselves,” says Huot Samnang, who heads the laboratory. “Step by step, we’re becoming self-sufficient.”

The “Gods of Angkor” will display some of the first pieces preserved entirely by the laboratory – a series of seven bronze Buddhist images. It is of no small significance in a country where cultural identity is intertwined with its rich Angkorian heritage.

“We feel proud of this exhibition,” Mr. Samnang says. “We can let the world know about our culture and the craftsmen that produced this incredible art.”

New study on ancient Angkor city is a wake-up call for Cambodian conservation [-Will Hun Sen heed the call?]

Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: A new study about the vast extent of the ancient city of Angkor and reasons for its demise is a wake-up call for Cambodia to be more vigilant in its efforts to conserve a centuries-old heritage, an official said Wednesday.

The study — published recently in a U.S. science journal — represents a new tool for preventing over-exploitation of Angkor, Cambodia's main tourist attraction, said Soeung Kong, a deputy director-general of Apsara Authority, the government agency managing the site.

"The findings are eye-opening for us. They awake us to a greater need for safeguarding (the ancient city)," he said.

The findings of the study, led by Damian Evans of the University of Sydney, Australia, were published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

They reveal that Angkor, during its zenith between the 9th and 14th centuries, was "the world's most extensive preindustrial low-density complex" and far larger than previously thought. It included an elaborate water management network encompassing nearly 1,000 square kilometers (390 square miles).

The researchers mapped the area, long obscured by jungle, using airborne imaging radar data acquired over Angkor in 2000 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Research found that the complex was too vast to manage. Extending rice fields to support a population of more than 1 million resulted in serious ecological problems, including deforestation, topsoil degradation and erosion.

The study's conclusions supported a theory in the early 1950s by Bernard-Philippe Groslier, a prominent French archaeologist, that the collapse of Angkor stemmed from over-exploitation of the environment.

Impoverished Cambodia has relied heavily on the Angkor temples in the northwestern province of Siem Reap province to earn much-needed hard currency from an ever-increasing number of tourists.

But in recent years, conservationists have expressed concerns about stress to the monuments, including the famed Angkor Wat, from the tourist invasion.

They also fear that the unrestricted local pumping of underground water to meet rapidly rising demand of hotels, guesthouses and residents in the provincial town may be undermining Angkor's foundations, destabilizing the earth beneath the centuries-old temples so much that they might sink and collapse.

Soeung Kong, the Apsara authority official, said what happened to ancient Angkor "appears to be repeating itself now" and thus highlights current challenges in managing and conserving the temples.

"Since we aware of this, we have to take measures to prevent it from worsening or to minimize the impact as much as possible," he said.

Cambodian Vulture Nests Offer Hope For Species

This slender-billed vulture nest is one of several recently discovered by conservationists in the forests of Cambodia. The breeding colony is currently the only one known in Southeast Asia. (Credit: WCS Cambodia Program)

Science Daily — Working in the remote forests of Cambodia, conservationists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have just discovered Southeast Asia's only known breeding colony of slender-billed vultures, one of the world's most threatened bird species.

Found in heavily forested country just east of the Mekong River in Cambodia's Stung Treng Province, the colony also represents one of the only known slender-billed vulture nesting areas in the world, and therefore one of the last chances for recovery for the species, now listed as "Critically Endangered" by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).

"We discovered the nests on top of a hill where two other vulture species were also found, one of which--the white-rumped vulture--is also 'Critically Endangered'," said Song Chansocheat, manager of the Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project, a government project supported by WCS, BirdLife International, World Wildlife Fund, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. "Amazingly, there were also a host of other globally threatened species of birds and primates. It's a very special place."

Chansocheat's team immediately set-up 24-hour protection measures against poaching and egg collecting, and are now working with local communities to ensure that they are involved in--and support--longer-term conservation measures. "We already have a successful WCS model working in the Northern Plains where local people benefit from conservation activities. I think we have a good chance of making it work here if we can find the support."

The slender-billed vulture is one of several vulture species in Asia that have been driven to the brink of extinction across its entire range due to Diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug used for cattle that is highly toxic to vultures. Diclofenac has lead to global population declines as high as 99 percent in slender-billed and other vulture species. Diclofenac is now being slowly phased out in South Asia, but not at a pace that assures the recovery of the vultures. Because Diclofenac is almost entirely absent from use in Cambodia, the country remains one of the main hopes for the survival of the species. However, these birds are still endangered from other threats, such as a lack of food due to the over-hunting of large-bodied mammals, loss of habitat, and sometimes direct hunting.

The Cambodia Vulture Conservation Project has already been successful in helping stem the decline in Asia's vultures in Cambodia through a combination of scientific research, direct protection, food supplementation and awareness-raising. Satellite-collaring of animals has lead to a greater understanding of which areas are important to the two most threatened species, while simultaneous vulture 'restaurants' across the country provide both an additional food source for the birds and a chance to undertake coordinated counts to monitor the size and structure of the population.

Chansocheat remains optimistic, adding "We have the backing of local people and of the Government. If we can find financial support to extend what we know is already a successful strategy, then we should be able to conserve these species forever."

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Wildlife Conservation Society.