page_title: Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary
section_title: Communities
hierarchical_section_title: Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary / Communities
caption_attribution_description: English: Arriving in the Bunong village after the two-day jungle trek
context_page_description: Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary is a 2,926.9 km² protected area in eastern Cambodia, located in Mondulkiri and Kratié provinces. The area was first established as Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area in 2002, later becoming Seima Protection Forest in 2009, finally becoming Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in 2016. The site is of national, regional, and global importance for a range of biodiversity, with more than 950 species recorded within the protected area. It is also the ancestral and contemporary home of a large number of the Bunong ethnic group.
context_section_description: Unusually for a protected area in Cambodia, KSWS is home to a large human population, predominately of the Bunong ethnic group. A traditionally Animist group, forests play a large role in community identity. In March 2012, Andoung Kraloeng village in KSWS became the first Indigenous community in Mondulkiri Province, and third nationally, to receive a collective land title under the 2001 Land Law. Since then, a total of 11 indigenous communities have been awarded legal rights to their traditional land within KSWS, facilitated by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the KSWS project. These titles have already proved vital for communities, allowing them to resist illegal land grabs, with one precedent-setting case reaching the high courts. 
  Rural livelihoods in the area are typically based on agriculture and forest use, including rain-fed rice paddy, cassava, cashew, rubber and resin tapping from Dipterocarpus species, Dipterocarpus alatus and Dipterocarpus intricatus.
  Mondulkiri Province has one of the highest population growth rates in Cambodia.
caption: Approaching a Bunong village in Mondulkiri Province.
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