[Article] Angkor Wat under threat.

17 October 2010 | The Phnom Penh Post | Keeley Smith (additional reporting by Rann Reuy)

An international heritage conservancy has warned that the Angkor Wat temple complex faces “critical” threats in the form of heavy traffic and inefficient conservation techniques.
A report released by the Global Heritage Fund also said the fact that many tourism-related businesses were foreign-owned made it difficult for Siem Reap residents to benefit economically from the temples.
“Hundreds of thousands of visitors climb over the ruins of Angkor every year causing heavy deterioration of original Khmer stonework,” says the report, which is titled “Saving Our Heritage: Safeguarding Cultural Sites Around the World”.
According to the report, the number of visitors to Angkor Wat has increased by 188 percent since 2000, from 840,000 to 2,420,000 in 2009.
An Apsara Authority official said last week that Angkor Wat had seen a 24-percent increase in foreign tourists in the first nine months of 2010 compared with the same period last year.
“Mass tourism is overrunning the fragile archaeology site, with millions every year climbing unabated on the monuments,” said GHF Executive Director Jeff Morgan.
The report also says that the temples have been threatened by rapid development in Siem Reap, and that Bayon temple has already borne the brunt of this trend.
“The nearby sprawl of hotels and restaurants is sapping the region’s local aquifer, which has caused the Bayon Temple’s 54 towers to sink into the ground,” it states.
Morgan said that while the Apsara Authority, the government body tasked with managing the temple complex, and UNESCO had taken positive steps towards ensuring the temples were maintained, they did not have a presence at many heritage sites elsewhere in the country.
“Other provinces have little support for heritage preservation [in a situation] typical of most developing countries,” Morgan said.
Mao Loa, director of the Apsara Authority’s Department of Monuments and Preventive Archaeology at the Angkor Wat temple complex, said she had not seen the report, but that the body would be receptive to feedback on the management of the complex.
“We always wait to see constructive criticisms; we need them to raise straight points,” she said.
She agreed that more conservation efforts were needed outside Angkor Wat. In 2004, she said, Apsara expanded from five departments to 14 in a bid to expand its reach, but some pressing conservation issues remain unaddressed.

Who benefits?
Despite rapid development fuelled by a rising number of visitors, much tourism-related revenue – which the report pegged at US$436 million last year – is not going to locals, the report states.

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[Photo by Roger Mitton/Angkorian-era ruins of Banteay Chhmar temple in Banteay Meanchey province.]

[Article] Temple tension mounts.

30 July 2010 | The Phnom Penh Post | Additional reporting by The Bangkok Post |Cheang Sokha and Sebastian Strangio

CAMBODIAN and Thai officials held abortive talks on the sidelines of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee meeting in Brazil yesterday in a last-ditch attempt to resolve a dispute over Cambodia’s management plan for Preah Vihear temple.
Phay Siphan, spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said that during the 45-minute meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and Thai Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti reiterated their governments’ stances on the temple listing.
He said the Thai official demanded joint management of Preah Vihear, and that Sok An repeated Cambodia’s long-standing opposition to such an arrangement.
“There was no significant result from the meeting. The meeting focused on the issue of sovereignty,” Phay Siphan said, but Cambodia “welcomed” UNESCO’s attempt to broker a resolution to the conflict.

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WHC postpones decision on temple plan to next year

30/07/2010 | Bangkok Post

The World Heritage Committee (WHC) on Thursday postponed discussion on Cambodia’s management plan for the Preah Vihear temple to its meeting next year in Bahrain.
The issue was expected to be on the agenda of the 21-member WHC annual meeting in Brasilia, Brazil, on Wednesday.  The committee instead dropped the topic, saying Cambodia had not followed proper procedure in submitting the plan.
Cambodia should have handed in its management proposal six months ahead of the meeting, but it made its submission less than 24 hours before the meeting began.
Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti, who is leading the Thai delegation, said from Brazil that the postponement is a satisfactory result.
"This will allow Thailand more time for to discuss the issue and to find solutions," he said.
Mr Suwit thanked his team, the government and the Thai people for their support and for voicing their opposition to Cambodia managing the site.

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The 11th century Preah Vihear temple is seen near the Thai border in Preah Vihear province, 543 km (337 miles) north of Phnom Penh, in this June 21, 2008 file photo. The World Heritage committee meeting in Canada has on June 7, 2008 approved Cambodia's application to list Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage site. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

[Article] Angkor Thom bus ban delayed.

29 July 2010 | The Phnom Penh Post | Rann Reuy

Siem Reap province
THE Apsara Authority has decided to postpone implementation of a ban on buses containing more than 12 seats within Angkor Thom, and an official said yesterday that the body hoped to discuss the issue at length with the Tourist Transport Association.
Earlier this month, Chrun Sophal, the body’s communications director, said the ban would go into effect on August 1. He said yesterday that the deadline had been delayed, though he could not provide a new date.
“We will implement it in the future,” he said.

A bus leaves Angkor Thom. The Apsara Authority has postponed implementation of a ban on buses with more than 12 seats in the site. [Photo by: Rann Reuy]

The Tourism Department at the Apsara Authority found that 15,000 vehicles entered the Angkor Wat temple complex each day in 2008, the last year for which statistics are available. Of those, about 900 were minibuses containing between 12 and 35 seats.

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[Article] Tourists flock to temple.

Thursday, 15 July 2010 | The Phnom Penh | Nguon Sovan

Children walk in front of a temple in Preah Vihear.
The complex has seen a huge rise in tourist numbers this year. AFP

TOURISTS visiting Cambodia’s Preah Vihear Temple increased nearly sevenfold in the first half of this year, as the area benefited from better infrastructure and reduced tension with Thailand.

Preah Vihear Tourism Department chief Kong Vibol said yesterday that from January to June this year 46,400 tourists visited the Preah Vihear temple complex.
The figure is a dramatic leap from the 5,940 tourists recorded over the same period last year. Foreign visitors were also being drawn to the site – they increased by 85 percent to 480 from 260.
“Most tourists are local, and the temple has attracted more of them due to good roads and infrastructure. It is easy to travel to, guesthouses and restaurants are available, and local security is strengthening while tensions with Thailand are diminished,” he said.

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[Article] Restoring history through art.

16 July 2010 | The Phnom Penh Post | Peter Olszewski

A restorer painstakingly fixes a painting at Bakong. [Photo by: Peter Olszewski]

It’s a magic morning at the Bakong temple grounds, with the prodigious Khmer tower framed by blue sky, and a riot of purple bougainvillea blooming at its base.

Cows graze on rich green grass beside the mirror-surfaced moat, monks chant in their monastery and, in the almost ruined Prasat Wat Bakong, work hums as a team of restorers patiently re-render the many religious wall paintings.

While almost all of the restoration at the Angkor temples revolves around the ancient Khmer edifices, at Bakong there is also a restoration team working on 20th century buildings in the complex – the “working” monasteries as such.

Some of these monasteries in Cambodia are festooned with dozens of brightly rendered religious wall paintings highlighting often lurid scenes from the life of Buddha and the Jatakas (tales of the previous lives of the Buddha). Often, however, these paintings are overlooked or dismissed as kitsch, unworthy of being classified as serious art. Some of the more gruesome paintings, sort of Bosch-gone-Buddhist renderings, are often rejected as grotesqueries.

But that’s not the viewpoint of Restaurateurs Sans Frontiere, a cultural NGO established in 1981 that began work at the Bakong site in 2007 at the instigation of Dr Vittorio Roveda, co-author of the book Buddhist Painting in Cambodia.

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[Article] Artefacts unearthed at Bayon temple.

Wednesday, 09 June 2010 15:01 | The Phnom Penh Post | Rann Reuy

Siem Reap Province - Archaeologists from Cambodia and Japan have recovered an assortment of nearly 1,000 items.

CAMBODIAN and Japanese archaeologists have since January unearthed about 1,000 artefacts buried beneath Bayon temple in Angkor Thom, according to a report released Tuesday during a conference concerning conservation efforts in the Angkor Wat temple complex.
The findings include pieces of gold, hardware, tools and religious relics, according to the report, released as part of the 19th Technical Committee meeting of the International Coordinating Committee for the Safeguarding and Development of the Historic Site of Angkor, which concludes today.
Kou Vet, chief of the archaeological unit for Japan-Apsara Safeguarding Angkor, said in a statement that his team had also discovered ceramics thought to have been imported from Thailand, Vietnam and Japan. [...]

 

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Archaeologists point to images detailing artefacts discovered at Bayon temple on Monday, the first day of a twice-yearly conservation meeting in Siem Reap. [Photo by: Rann Reuy]