Kevin Abourezk
ICT
Around the world: Cardamom irrigation dam threatens forests, fisheries and families in Cambodia; Shooting Stars alumni blaze pathways for Aboriginal women in Australia; and UN criticizes persistent Indigenous overincarceration in Canada’s prisons.
CAMBODIA: Cardamom irrigation dam threatens forests, fisheries and families
Forest crews have begun clearing land for a new irrigation dam in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, deep inside Pursat province’s Kravanh National Park, Mongabay reported on September 10.
Satellite imagery and geolocated photos indicate ground broke in February 2025. By mid-August, a roughly 10-kilometer (six-mile) access road and at least 60 hectares (148 acres) of clearance were visible. Official maps suggest more than 7,300 hectares (18,038 acres) will be stripped, with nearly 4,000 hectares (9,884) inundated once “Irrigation Dam 2” fills its reservoir.
Authorities say the project, overseen by the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, will tame floods and secure water for agriculture. But the Cardamoms are among Cambodia’s last intact rainforests and a biodiversity stronghold — home to the critically endangered Sunda pangolin, along with Asian elephants, dholes, pileated gibbons and green peafowl.
The new reservoir borders the Samkos REDD+ area, where a Wildlife Alliance statement acknowledges: “The construction of the water reservoir project in Stung Arai, Pursat province is expected to cause deforestation of approximately 0.6 percent of the Samkos REDD+ Project Area,” adding rangers are monitoring construction and that “all deforestation will be fully accounted for during the project’s upcoming validation and verification.”
Economically, the forests matter far beyond timber. A World Bank assessment valued ecosystem services in the Pursat River Basin at roughly $99 million and warned that forest loss “would tend to increase peak river flows and erosion, which would lower water availability in the dry season (when water is particularly valuable for irrigation), increase flood risk and increase siltation of reservoirs, thus reducing their useful life.”
Critics also note hydropower and water-control schemes have sometimes provided cover for illegal logging in the Cardamoms.
The dam site sits on the Arai River, a key tributary of the Pursat River that feeds Tonle Sap Lake. Tonle Sap’s famed flood pulse — vital to fisheries — has already weakened, and barriers across the catchment have restricted fish movement. With some 70 freshwater species using the Pursat system for spawning and migration, another obstruction could worsen the decline.
For riverine communities upstream, the consequences feel immediate. “I feel deeply saddened by the loss of the land — there is so much forest, and the forest resources are abundant,” said Phanha of Rokat commune, requesting a pseudonym for safety, according to Mongabay. “It would be better if they protected it and developed it for tourism instead.” Phanha adds that officials justify the dam over looming scarcity: “[The government] are concerned there won’t be enough water by 2030, so they are building this dam,” yet worries about the trade-off: “When downstream communities need water, it will be released from the dam for them, but for us, who live upstream, we’ll have nothing to support our rice cultivation — we rely only on small creeks.”
Local livelihoods depend on the Arai River for drinking, cooking, bathing, and crops, and on surrounding forests for rattan, seasonal mushrooms and flowers, vines, and medicinal herbs. Since construction began, villagers say forest access has been denied, pushing some to leave for construction jobs in Phnom Penh.
It remains unclear whether a legally required environmental impact assessment was approved before clearing; a ministerial letter seen by reporters told the developer to “proceed with the necessary procedures,” suggesting the process lagged behind bulldozers. Public consultation is also contested.
“No one dares to protest,” Phanha said, according to Mongabay. “If [the government] asked us to choose between a dam and a tourism area, we have to say that we are happy with the dam — we cannot say we’re unhappy because they are powerful people. Some villagers say building the dam could provide many benefits to the agricultural economy, but it would also destroy a lot of forest.”
AUSTRALIA: Shooting Stars alumni blaze pathways for Aboriginal women
A school-based initiative that empowers Aboriginal girls in Western Australia and South Australia has notched a new milestone, marking the first graduates of its formal alumni stream, National Indigenous Times reported on September 13.
Hannah, Melinda, Skye, Mia and Danika completed the 10-week Champion Mentality mentoring program, a workforce-readiness course that paired practical support — job applications, resume coaching and introductions to employers — with consistent mentorship. Their achievement, reported by National Indigenous Times on September 13, was widely celebrated and signalled broader community support too.
Born from a 2014 Netball WA pilot in Halls Creek, Shooting Stars remains anchored in schools while widening its focus to life after graduation. The organisation frames its purpose as “building confidence, strengthening cultural identity, promoting well-being, and nurturing positive relationships.” Executive officer Helen Ockerby called this week’s step “a major milestone” for the program and the young women, noting it has been in development for some time.
For Ockerby, the alumni pathway simply extends the support Shooting Stars has always offered. “Sometimes we have young people finishing school, and they have no idea what to do next, or no kind of support system around them that can help them navigate that,” she said. The new stream gives graduates sustained guidance as they plot next moves — training, work, or further study — without losing the community that helped them succeed at school.
The initiative strengthened its impact through partnerships. Majority Aboriginal-owned Danjoo Solutions backed the alumni launch, while Perth Mint provided laptops to the graduates, removing a common barrier to applications and online learning. Early outcomes are encouraging: two additional alumni could not even finish the mentoring cycle — because they secured jobs, including one role with Shooting Stars itself.
“Today marks a milestone for Shooting Stars,” Ockerby told attendees at the graduation. “We’re incredibly proud of these young women. They showed real courage by putting their hands up for something new and committing to their own growth. They’ve blazed a trail as our first-ever alumni graduates, and their names will be forever etched in Shooting Stars history.”
Upskill Global managing director Brooking Hovell, who helped deliver twice-weekly sessions, said discussions centered on employment pathways, goal setting and self-belief. “We really wanted to discover what it is each young women wanted to do and what they love to do, because that’s important. We reminded the participants that their options aren’t limited. They could pursue politics, small business, sport, or whatever their passion is,” he said. “To see their dedication at such a young age was phenomenal.”
As a capstone, the five graduates travelled to Melbourne, where they watched St Kilda play West Coast in the AFLW and visited Clothing the Gaps, the Koorie Heritage Trust, Lancôme and BHP — broadening networks and sparking ideas about careers across culture, fashion, health and industry. The cohort’s success signals momentum forward.
For Shooting Stars, the message is continuity: relationships started in school should carry into early adulthood. With alumni mentoring now formalised, the program aims to accompany more young Aboriginal women from classroom to career — with confidence, culture and community intact, and future leadership opportunities for graduates.
CANADA: UN criticizes persistent Indigenous overincarceration in Canada
A new report from the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention says it is “deeply concerned” that Indigenous people remain vastly overrepresented in Canada’s jails — echoing the same warning the group issued after a 2005 visit, CBC News reported on September 12.
The report notes that in 2023 Indigenous adults accounted for about five percent of the national population but 32 percent of people in federal custody and half of all incarcerated women. In some provincial facilities, Indigenous people made up as much as 70-80 percent of detainees.
For Cree lawyer Eleanore Sunchild of Saskatchewan, the numbers are tragically familiar. “It’s just the same old story as we’ve always had; it’s the same position we’ve always been in,” she said. The UN group links the disparity to intergenerational trauma and systemic racism, citing poverty, substance use, unemployment, homelessness, the child welfare system, and the legacy of residential schools as major drivers.
Those forces are visible in individual lives, says prisoner advocate Sherri Gordon, who co-founded Beyond Prison Walls Canada Society with her husband, a Sixties Scoop survivor serving a life sentence. “My husband grew up that way. That’s exactly what his life played out as,” Gordon said. “He did his first federal sentence at 16 years old in an adult prison.” She argues the justice system too rarely sees Indigenous people as human beings in need of help beyond the offence itself, and urges trauma-informed, culturally grounded practice at every stage of the process.
Canadian courts are supposed to weigh those backgrounds through Gladue reports, which advise judges on culturally appropriate sentencing for Indigenous offenders. But Jane Dickson, an associate professor at Carleton University who writes Gladue reports and trains others, says the tool is often misused.
“Our expectation is that people who write Gladue reports receive training to do that work and yet we assume that people receiving them don’t need training to use them,” she said. “If you’ve been sitting on the bench for five or 10 years and all you’ve ever received are [pre-sentence reports] and you are used to a particular way of analyzing, of engaging with those reports, if you transfer that over to a Gladue report, then that approach doesn’t work there.”
Done properly, Dickson adds, Gladue is more than a catalogue of harms; it should map strengths and risks and present detailed sentencing options for every outcome. Success depends on re-entry basics, too: once released, a person needs housing, food, and stability to engage with rehabilitation programming.
She has seen the difference the approach can make citing a case in the James Bay region where a man received a conditional sentence of two years less a day with conditions to attend Sun Dances and abstain from drugs and alcohol. “It completely turned this person around,” Dickson said.
The UN group does record progress: youth incarceration fell by 88 percent between 1997-98 and 2020-21. Still, advocates say better data is essential. There is limited disaggregated information on offending, incarceration, and sentencing by race.
“Data tells you stories and data can hold you accountable,” said Erin Riley-Oettl of Amnesty International Canada, urging Ottawa to operationalize the National Indigenous Justice Strategy with firm timelines and community participation. “Canada’s legal system has embedded systemic racism in various stages in the process that result in overincarceration of Indigenous folks and of Black folks as well in Canada and it’s appalling that it is still continuing,” she said.
My final thoughts
My final thoughts are across three continents this week. And the same question echoes: do our systems serve the people whose lands, lives and futures they touch? In Cambodia’s Cardamoms, an irrigation dam is advancing through protected forest with shaky consultation and an opaque environmental review, threatening a river that feeds Tonle Sap and the communities who rely on it.
In Canada, a UN working group warns – again – that Indigenous people remain vastly overrepresented in prison, the predictable outcome of intergenerational trauma, racism and policy failure. And in Australia, a school-based program for Aboriginal girls has graduated its first alumni cohort into work-ready adulthood, proving that the arc can bend toward opportunity when institutions actually invest in people.
These stories are not identical; their geology, law and politics diverge. Yet they rhyme. Each asks who defines the public interest, how consent is earned, and what success looks like. If success in Cambodia is measured only in cubic meters stored, we will miss the costs borne by fish, forests and families. A resident’s plea — protect the forest and “develop it for tourism instead “is not nostalgia; it is a policy proposal for livelihoods that do not evaporate when the floodgates close.
Likewise, Canada’s recurring numbers aren’t news but a ledger of accumulated harm that keeps being tallied. When a system consistently produces the same result, the result is the system.
Australia’s milestone offers a counter-script. Shooting Stars did not wait for the labor market to “discover” its graduates; it built a bridge — laptops, mentors, employer links, twice-weekly sessions — that treats culture as an asset and agency as a muscle. “They’ve blazed a trail,” the program leader said, and that matters when institutions affirm potential, the pipeline runs toward purpose, not punishment. The contrast with Canada’s carceral pipeline is stark — and instructive. As one practitioner said of a culturally tailored sentence, “It completely turned this person around.” That is what policy success sounds like, one life at a time.
Three principles emerge.
First, protect. Water and justice infrastructure must be accountable to those downstream and upstream of power. Free, prior and informed consent is not a courtesy; it is the cheapest insurance against ecological collapse and social unrest. If a project cannot withstand community scrutiny, it cannot claim the public good.
Second, invest. Programs that pair cultural grounding with practical tools — like Australia’s mentoring cohort — change trajectories at modest cost. The same logic applies in Canada: Gladue reports only work when judges are trained to use them, when housing and food exist upon release, and when options include community-governed supports.
Third, repair. Data must illuminate responsibility, not obscure it. Canada’s lack of disaggregated statistics, and Cambodia’s opacity around environmental approvals, drain the public’s ability to judge trade-offs. Publish the numbers, publish the options, and publish the timelines — and let communities co-author the outcomes.
Taken together, these stories suggest a simple test: if a dam, a court, or a school cannot show how its decisions expand the circle of dignity for Indigenous and local communities, the design is wrong. The work ahead is not to perfect extraction or punishment, but to grow the capacity of people and places to flourish — on their own terms and with their own consent.