Nature Lodge | responsible ecotourism | Sen Monorom

Over the past five years, Nature Lodge has been running in the spirit of fair trade, pacticing social and enviourmental responsibility as a business. Nature Lodge has helped to create dozens of eco friendly jobs as well as provide a satainable livelihood to 162 local minority villagers, mahouts, guides and drivers through the community based trekking programs. Nature Lodge provides hospitality and language training to under privildged villagers and drop out youths. Our training and veteran staff members earns fair wages ( about triple the avarage in Cambodia ) and has full room and board provided. So while acquiring and establishing new skills, they can simultaneously plan and save for the future.
Staff Retreat at Bu Sra falls.	Recycled timber dining area.	The hydro generator.
We do our best to promote environmentally friendly ideas in the area: 95% of all waste produced, gets composted or sent to recycle centers. There are special recycle bins in the common area. Guests can refill and reuse their old water bottles. For the first 3 years, the lodge was powered solely by a micro hydro system we have built ourselves. In Mondulkiri, so much timber is wasted, as mostly people only use the prime timber tree core for making wooden planks, while the what remains of the tree is usually left behind. We collect, polish and work with those timber leftovers. We use them for building, making furniture and decoration. Most Cambodian guest houses and restaurants, especially in Mondulkiri, are filled with chunky wooden furniture made from illigally logged luxury woods ( Beang, T'nong, Kronyu ). You will not find any at Nature Lodge. All of our furniture is hand made from recycled timberleftovers.
Common Illigal luxury wooden furniture.	Felled timber on a slash and burn field.	Rooms built with recycled timber leftovers.
Reforastation and permaculture: Mondulkiri's native trees are the most important base of the local eco system; as they provide food and shelter for the areas birds and animals. We have conserved the original landscape, kept and re-forested the property with wild trees. They help cool the earth with their shade and fruits trees flourish in these conditions. Many locals have noticed it is much cooler under the trees and are following suit.
King working on the roads.	King in Mondulkiri winter coat.	Foal's first step.
In 2009, we bought a few Cambodian ponies. Previously heavy duty cart working ponies. They now lead a life of free ranging, lawn mowing, and the occational trail ride in the cool hills of Mondulkiri. The Khmer horses are very unique as they are one of the few natural, (not a man made) breeds. Through this new horsemanship, we learned about the wonderful work of CPWO. We would like to thank them for their assistance and recommend all horse and animal loving people to visit their website: http://www.cambodiaponywelfare.org/