Tonle Sap means “Fresh River” in Khmer and is the name of both the river that flows into the Mekong and the largest lake in Southeast Asia.

Together with its floodplains, the Tonle Sap, also nicknamed "Cambodia's beating heart", acts as the central lifeline for more than three million Cambodians living along its banks. For centuries, this mesmerizing ecosystem, bordered by floating villages, has fed families of fishers and farmers.

The constant movement of the water has created a unique ecosystem with over 300 species of fish, creating one of the most fertile and diverse fishery systems in the world. It is furthermore home to diverse species of mammals, amphibian, and reptiles as well as large breeding colonies of some of the world's most threatened water birds. The Tonle Sap is also the only lake in the world that is entirely surrounded by a flooded forest, which covers an area of 650,000 hectares.

Today however, this unique ecosystem faces unprecedented threats, with the lake and its surrounding floodplains under increasing pressure, especially from deforestation, infrastructure development and climate change. Additionally, agricultural expansion and intensification as well as exploitation of wood for fuel, charcoal production and construction materials have destroyed or converted large areas of the floodplain vegetation. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that both climate change and water level changes in the Mekong River due to dams are likely to have dramatic effects on the Tonle Sap water levels, which will affect its entire ecosystem, reducing forest areas and fish populations and thus severely threatening local livelihoods.

Now, more than ever, concerted efforts are needed to preserve the flooded forest of Tonle Sap.

Since July 2019, UNDP has supported the Royal Government of Cambodia, to protect and restore the flooded forest and its biodiversity within the lake area to improve fishing productivity, reduce carbon emissions and prevent erosion.

With the main objective to promote an integrated and sustainable flooded forest rehabilitation and management in the Tonle Sap Great Lake, the project focuses on promoting more sustainable management practices, capacity building for local authorities and community engagement in the flooded forest conservation areas.

Funded by The Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) and implemented by the Cambodian Fisheries Administration (FIA) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries (MAFF), these steps have led to the successful replanting of 60,000 native tree species in three flooded forest areas north of the lake. The flooded forest conservation project follows an integral approach by not only strengthening the capacity of the community to manage 614 hectares of community fisheries, but also to introduce energy-efficient technology, for example using biodigesters. The overall objective of the project is to reduce the demand for wood biomass and curb deforestation and pressures on the flooded forest.