Once a beautiful jungle scenery - now just left overs from most intense logging. Specially in the post war years some of the government agencies like Military, etc needed cash and started logging. Hence it would be wrong to call it illegal logging, because it was done with the consent of the government just for money.
This very day of jungle photography in Phnom Kulen I walked most of the way up. The only noise from next jungle covered mountain was .. a chain saw !
Such looted ex-jungle regions are common in Cambodia and a very typical Cambodia scenery. It may take thousands of years for the destroyed jungle to fully recover if a reforestation program is started. In 1995 there were attempts to start reforestation. A jungle tree nursery near the Angkor Wat temple was producing hundreds of small jungle trees. Now the very tree nursery is almost empty and seems to serve as picnic ground with lots of trash and plastic. The easy money from temple entry tickets and national park tickets is apparently more tempting than real work for a healthy future of Khmer people. The access to the National Park Phnom Kulen ( also spelled Phnom Koulen ) is 20 US$ for nothing at all offered except some jungle made by God and only partially looted by humans.
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