The Central Cardamom Protected Forest (CCPF) in Cambodia is a 400,000-hectare zone that the government created in 2002.
Conservationists see the Cardamoms as an ecological jewel. It is home to dozens of threatened species, including some that have become extinct elsewhere, as well as a vital watershed that supports hundreds of thousands of people downstream of its rivers.
But the CCPF is also home to more than 3,000 isolated villagers, many of them indigenous Khmer Daeum whose ancestors have lived in the forest for centuries.
In dealing with them, authorities have two choices: Offer a stick, or offer a carrot. Officials can tell the communities to stop using their ancestral forests outright, or work with them to end destructive commercial poaching and logging.