A fishy crowded market seemed silent after moment of sunny day has changed all of a sudden to only thunder banging and drumming sound of heavy rain were heard. Accompanying the sound, sellers started complaining how unlucky their days were for all of them to run business.
Mrs. SAO Samnang, a vegetable seller in Russian market complained about the weather she has faced “The weather nowadays has changed a lot from the past, before it rarely rains in dry season, but now it rains whenever it wants; and on the other hand, it is getting hotter and hotter even in rainy season or in Kaderk period [winter in Cambodia].”
She continued with her sad face, unlike those who have proper stores inside the market, we the normal vegetable sellers only own a small store each outside the market with an umbrella as the roof and without any wall; we really have a hard time facing this. There often happens when the rain came all the sudden in the middle of sunny day; we needed to pack our stuff up and ran without earning a Reil [Cambodia currency].
Questioning herself, Mrs. SAO complained about the situation, “How would I earn my living if it keeps raining like this?”
Climate change issue claim to be an interesting topic to people in any background. With unexpected change of weather, most people find it hard to confront with this such of global issue.
“Before I never checked weather forecast but now I need to check it daily” said an office worker. I need to be cautious with the weather because I need travel to work by motorbike everyday, and I really find it hard to encounter the weather situation. We cannot manage ourselves with the weather like before, sometime it is so hot and sometime it rain unexpectedly.
Not just a concern for sellers in market or people in the city but the change of weather in Cambodia is really a big problem for agricultural factor, which is the main gear of this country’s economy.
Mr. SING Vat, a pumpkin farmer in 7 hectares square farmland said, this is the main challenge for us [farmers] who work base on seasons every year. We only start growing our crop in between dry season and rainy season, which is in April and May. Not just pumpkin crop, any crop needs to be planted during this time and they are all needed the land and weather that is not dry and not too wet or they cannot yearn a lot neither grow well.
He added, we [farmers] never use technical or modern things to measure or forecast weather beforehand, we always follow the traditional weather forecast from generation to generation, we need to look at 2 based seasons in Cambodia (dry and rainy season).
As for dry season, it normally dry with no rain or less raining and for rainy season, normally rain which produce wetland for farming. For this reason, all farmers always start planting their crops in the last period of dry season, which is the beginning of rainy season.
He stated, “Everything will be all gone if there is No or Less rain in rainy season.” All efforts that all farmers have committed would be all gone.
Mr. SOU Socheath, Network Coordinator of The Cambodia Climate Change Network (CCCN) said it is such a big change of climate for Cambodia as the whole world as well. We cannot measure how big or how worse it has changed but by looking at natural disasters in these past few years, we can see that there were many serious natural disasters that affects many people in large scale and climate change has been taking a big part in this issue.
According to the research document that CCCN has done, in 2009 the storm name Ketsana typoon hit Cambodia and killed 43 people and destroyed millions of dollar of citizen property. And in 2011 there was flood that affected 1.5 million people and 331.000 shelters. Also in this recent natural disaster, there was flood in September 2013 that killed 168 people.
To be noticed, The monster typhoon, Haiyan, attacked on six Philippine islands lately on November 8, with landfalls and floods many were not able to access food and medical care and more than 5.000 people were dead, according to a national agency reported. This storm also made landfalls in north Vietnam as well and thousands were evacuated from the area - BBC.
Mr. Cheath added, Climate change is the global issue, not just Cambodia is facing this issue but the whole world is also facing it. So do the cause of the problem, not Cambodia alone created this issue but the whole world also took part. Carbon stock in Cambodia is getting less and less because of the use of Energy such as fossil fuel also other activities of human like deforestation.
In order to prevent the problems that could be happened by this change of climate, He suggested everyone should be awared of the change of weather nowadays by checking weather forecast daily and be alert if there is any change happen like the water level keep rising or the rain keep falling.
He added, the simple weather forecast alone cannot help; its message and content need to be clarified and specified to the people. On the other hand, people also need to be educated about weather forecast through any media platform (TV, Radio and others). In addition, Government also need to wide spread information as soon as possible.
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