PHNOM PENH — Mao Man, a 65-year-old ethnic Cham fisher in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, says he isn’t sure how many times he’s had to relocate in his life, but he thinks he’ll be evicted again before the Water Festival this November. Today, he and his neighbors live on small wooden boats, which they moor behind a luxury hotel. Like many Chams, being relocated is a constant part of his life, and the lives of his ancestors. But now, the pressures to relocate come wrapped in the language of environmental protection. “When I move, I float like a water hyacinth down the river,” Mao told Mongabay on July 6. Mao Man sits on the shore of the Mekong River near his boat in July, 2025. Image by Vutha Srey for Mongabay. The Chams are one of Cambodia’s largest ethnic minorities, though they aren’t technically Indigenous people. They’re descendants of Champa, a collection of city-states that once ruled parts of southern Vietnam. After the last Cham state was annexed by the Đại Việt monarchy in 1835, and a campaign to forcibly assimilate and dispossess the Chams was instituted, many fled to Cambodia and settled along the Mekong River, converting to a unique form of Islam and taking up fishing. Today, about two-thirds of all Chams live in Cambodia. Mao, like many others, has lived through decades of upheaval. During the Cambodian civil war, he had to flee his village in Kampong Cham, the province with the highest concentration of Chams.…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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