Our main strategy to imple­ment pro­jects is for pro­ject staff to reside in the tar­get vil­lages for exten­ded peri­ods of time (approx­im­ately 22 days per month). CRDT field staff live, eat, work and even some­times cel­eb­rate cere­mon­ies with local people. By liv­ing in the com­munit­ies in which it works, we are able to work closely to real­ise a range of activ­it­ies and develop a sense of trust. This approach is not com­mon amongst local NGOs in Cam­bodia but is one that we feel is very successful.

To ensure effect­ive trans­fer of know­ledge, the bene­fi­ciar­ies them­selves apply all tech­no­lo­gies and innov­a­tions that we intro­duce into the pro­jects. All rural devel­op­ment and live­li­hood inter­ven­tions are simple and eas­ily under­stood, which allows for greater dis­sem­in­a­tion of inform­a­tion as well as adapt­a­tion by the bene­fi­ciar­ies. The vil­la­gers are expec­ted to con­trib­ute their time and labour to ensure the suc­cess of the pro­ject, thus increas­ing own­er­ship and sustainability.

We have a unique approach in terms of our joint vis­ion of poverty alle­vi­ation and envir­on­mental sus­tain­ab­il­ity. These two threads run through­out all of our activ­it­ies. We select pro­ject sites that are in high pri­or­ity areas for con­ser­va­tion, and ensure that all live­li­hood activ­it­ies are envir­on­ment­ally sound and reduce nat­ural resource depend­ency. Com­munit­ies situ­ated in import­ant areas of biod­iversity often resort to defor­est­a­tion or unsus­tain­able fish­ing in order to sup­port their fam­il­ies. We work with com­munit­ies to sup­port food secur­ity and gen­er­ate sus­tain­able income, rais­ing liv­ing stand­ards, allow­ing com­munit­ies to become respons­ible cus­todi­ans of their nat­ural resources, and have the capa­city to defend against encroach­ment from out­side.
 
The water, san­it­a­tion and renew­able energy pro­grammes also aim to raise liv­ing stand­ards with min­imum cost to the envir­on­ment. Our envir­on­mental edu­ca­tion pro­grammes sup­port all the live­li­hood activ­it­ies, so the bene­fi­ciar­ies can under­stand about global con­cerns like Cli­mate Change, and make the link between live­li­hoods and con­ser­va­tion for themselves.

In Novem­ber 2011 we opened Kratie’s first tour book­ing agency sup­port­ing envir­on­mental con­ser­va­tion through sus­tain­able tour­ism. Income from tours con­tin­ues to dir­ectly sup­port our work by striv­ing to improve food secur­ity, incomes, and liv­ing stand­ards of poor rural com­munit­ies, all in sup­port of envir­on­mental con­ser­va­tion in Cambodia.

In the future we hope to find fund­ing for an eco­farm dis­play­ing all of our live­li­hood, renew­able energy and san­it­a­tion tech­niques, as well as being a hub for farm­ers and other organ­isa­tions to attend train­ings and learn advanced agri­cul­ture techniques.