PHNOM PENH, Cambodia--Cambodia has approved a forest conservationproject funded by "Tomb Raider" star Angelina Jolie in two formerKhmer Rouge strongholds.
Jolie has promised up to $1.5 million for community-based workover the next five years in remote areas in northwestern Cambodia.
The money will educate villagers about conservation awareness,draw demarcation lines to protect forest and wildlife sanctuaries andtrain local rangers, said Mounh Sarath, executive director ofCambodian Vision in Development, the local group in charge of theproject.
He said the project aims to preserve some 148,200 acres of forestin the Samlaut and Pailin areas along Cambodia's northwestern borderwith Thailand.
"[Jolie] loves the area, the people and the [natural] resourcesthere," Mounh Sarath said Thursday after signing the agreement withthe Ministry of Environment.
Samlaut and Pailin are two former Khmer Rouge strongholds thatserved as battle zones between the guerrillas and government troopsuntil 1998, when the Khmer Rouge movement collapsed. The areas arestill littered with land mines and unexploded ordnance left over fromthe war.
Jolie adopted her son Maddox from a Cambodian orphanage, and sheis having a house built in Cambodia. AP
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