Cambodia’s funan techo canal forces farmers from their homes as environmental concerns mount

Thet Chanton had barely finished building his $20,000 home along the Bassac creek in Cambodia’s Takeo province when local authorities delivered devastating news: his house would be demolished to make way for the controversial Funan Techo Canal. Just five months after completing construction in June 2024, Chanton learned his property sits in the path of Cambodia’s ambitious waterway project designed to connect the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand.

The massive infrastructure project will carve a 180-kilometer (112-mile) channel through four provinces—Kandal, Takeo, Kampot, and Kep—cutting directly through farms, wetlands, and residential communities. Chanton represents one of approximately 400 households the government estimates will lose their homes entirely, while 2,305 total households containing 11,525 people face some form of displacement or impact from the canal’s construction.

For farming families like Chanton’s, who took out a $10,000 microfinance loan to build their home around a small rice farm, the forced relocation presents both financial hardship and uncertainty about their agricultural livelihoods. The canal project, while promoted as boosting Cambodia’s economy through improved shipping access, has sparked significant opposition from environmental groups and affected communities who fear the destruction of traditional farming areas and critical ecosystems.

This displacement of rural farmers represents just one dimension of the Funan Techo Canal’s environmental and social impact, adding to existing concerns about effects on coastal wildlife and marine ecosystems outlined in previous reporting on this controversial megaproject.