As the Kingdom gets set to celebrate the 3rd National Orchid Day next month, efforts are being made by the Ministry of Environment to upgrade an orchid centre in Siem Reap province to become a multiple-use area in the country.

Located inside Phnom Kulen National Park, the current Sok An Phnom Kulen Orchid Research and Conservation Centre is the only orchid research facility in the country.

The centre covers a total of 2,020 hectares of the land in Banteay Srei district, including 31.09 hectares of the orchid dome zone.

The centre was established in late 2019 by the General Secretariat for the National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD) in collaboration with the Siem Reap provincial Department of Environment and the owner of the Bloom Garden Greenhouse.

It aims to promote orchid conservation and serve as a biodiversity research site for educational and ecotourism purposes.

Orchid which is known in Khmer as “Kesor Kol” is currently under threat from trafficking in various forms to neighbouring countries especially Thailand and Vietnam over the years.

Chan Somaly, Undersecretary of State of the Ministry of Environment who is in charge of managing the centre, said while visiting the site on Tuesday that after receiving permission from the government to establish this centre, the ministry has prepared a master plan in which the centre will be divided into 16 zones.

In addition to the administrative, parking and reservoir zones, Somaly said the site still has development and eco-tourism areas, including a native plant conservation zone, hiking zone and natural homestay.

“We also plan to establish a herbarium, exhibition venue for people to study and research, and especially the establishment of a ‘seed bank’, in which we will collect the plant and livestock husbandry,” she added.

The Ministry Secretary of State and spokesman Neth Pheaktra estimated that there are about 500 different orchid species in the Kingdom’s natural forests.

He said so far the centre has collected about 5,000 specimens comprising 210 orchid species and 114 of them have been scientifically classified and categorised.

Most of them were discovered in Preah Sihanouk, Koh Kong, Kampot, Siem Reap and Mondulkiri provinces.

The Ministry has previously noted that Thailand has recorded more than 1,500 species, Vietnam has more than 700 species and Laos has more than 500 species.

Pheaktra said to promote orchid conservation, the government will hold another orchid event next month.

“This year, the Ministry of Environment will organise the 3rd National Orchid Day in March. The first and second National Orchid Days were attended by a large number of people who are flower traders who brought many kinds of flowers and new orchid species for exhibition,” he said.

He said the Ministry has also banned the export of endangered orchid species by issuing guidelines to provincial authorities with protected areas, forest officials and conservationists to educate and guide people on orchid conservation.

“There is no problem for ordinary people to pluck and sell, but overexploitation will lead to the loss of our orchid species. So we do both education and law enforcement to protect it,” he said.

According to Chhin Sophea, Director of the Ministry’s Biodiversity Research Office, they are planning to create laboratories at the site to provide services for both national and international researchers.

“The centre acts as a place to keep the species, train specialists and do research,” he said. “As I mentioned earlier, wild orchid species are very hard to find. If students want to study these, it is very difficult for them to go to the forest for search due to a lack of resources, so they can come and study here directly.”

Sophea said the centre has also cooperated with foreign experts, especially experts from the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris, to organise a training course on the correct techniques for the collection of orchid specimens.