Analysis of Fiscal Gap and Financing of Cambodia’s Protected Areas

抄録

The Analysis of Fiscal Gap and Financing of Cambodia’s Protected Area (PA) conducted by the Department of International Conventions & Biodiversity, Ministry of Environment (MoE), aimed to identify resource gaps in the management of 23 PAs of Cambodia. The pressure & response indicators were used to analyze resource gaps. Pressure indicators were population, number of visitors of each PA, roads, and hiking trails within PAs; while response indicators included the number of full time staff and operational expenditure. To examine resource gaps for PAs management, all PAs were classified into three clusters according to the area size. The comparisons between pressure and response demonstrated trends of existing resources for the management of PAs, therefore they were analyzed by pairing pressure and response indicator. To calculate resource gaps, two benchmarks were set for each cluster: the average and the highest. Each PA resource gap was identified based on two rules: 1) bringing the number of fulltime staff and operational expenditure that was below average to the “average benchmark”; 2) bringing the number of fulltime staff and operational expenditure that was higher than the average to the “highest benchmark”. As a result, the total gap of full time staff in 2009 was 449 personals, equal to 1/3 of existing staff. However, the gap of full time staff in this context did not take into account of their capacity to fulfill PA management tasks. The total operational expenditure gap in 2009 was 1,221,405 USD, equal to 25% of the benchmark estimation of 2,462,881 USD. In conclusion, for better management of 23 PAs, the budget for PAs operation should be doubled; therefore it should be increased up to 2.5 million USD per year.