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Tobacco company backs reforestation ($$) 

British American Tobacco (BAT) does not just grow and process tobacco in Cambodia, it is also helping Cambodia to reforest. A tree nursery, owned by the Provincial Department of Forestry, but funded and run by BAT, was opened near Pursat on Friday, June 11.

In a public ceremony BAT's general manager, John Nelson, and Pursat's governor, Ung Samy, planted a specimen tree at the road entrance, watched by the deputy head of the Forestry Administration, Chea Sam Ang, and dozens of local students and farmers.

Set among the rice paddies just outside Pursat town, the tree nursery will produce up to 500,000 saplings, both native and exotic, every year. . . .

In Cambodia BAT has contracted 800 tobacco growers in the Kampong Cham province. The company has two tobacco factories, one in Kampong Cham and one in Phnom Penh. By introducing modern farming techniques, the company claims to have more than doubled the yield from its contracted farms over the last six years.

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