The alienation between the villagers and the area which they consider to be Personal Heritage that UNESCO claims to avoid, has gripped everyone for years now. With park management increasingly restricting freedom in the settlements, it has left the villagers to become increasingly dependent on the jobs distributed by the management or at the mercy of the tourist industry. Despite the millions of tourists who visit the temples from the nearby town of Siem Reap, the province remains one of the poorest in the country. Over the years, the park's changing management has already led to plenty of tensions and controversy and, according to many villagers, the UNESCO heritage status is now being used for financial and political purposes more than ever before, and they find themselves on the brink of losing everything. Forced to make way for the demands of tourism and preservation, they have been relocated to a newly developed rural area, far removed from their revered temples and holy traditions. 

Saveun (on the right) has been selling drinks in a shady spot at the East Gate of Angkor Wat since the turn of the century. A resilient and hardworking man, he enjoys playing Cambodian rock and roll to attract customers and keep his morale up. His family’s land is in Zone 1, which has severely limited their future prospects. He, his brothers and sister used to be given their own space on their parents’ land where they could live together. Now he can only fantasize about it, because since the Apsara restrictions, nothing can be built on his parents’ land. He moved in with his in-laws just outside the city and is now the only one of his family of 7 brothers and a sister to live ‘outside the zone’. Two brothers who had a restaurant had to tear it down themselves, while his eldest brother still dreams of building a modest eco-resort on the family plot. But getting permission for that is almost impossible. Saveun is very balanced in his views, on the one hand he is happy with the idea that the area should remain green, but he finds the restrictions to build small and live modestly a crime by the government. Especially when it turns a blind eye to the building of large villas. His shop is now in a new location where few tourists come by. There is no shade and there is enormous competition from the much more favourably located, covered and cooled shops that are rented out by Apsara, where only souvenirs imported from China are sold.

Born in a village between Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, Jantha, 41, lived until recently with his wife and four children on the moat of Angkor Wat, where his family ran a restaurant. Jantha had a difficult childhood: he brought an elephant on foot from Laos to Cambodia to show tourists around. He hunted tigers along the way and was known as a ‘gangster’. A few years ago, however, the government banned all elephant rides in the park and now not only their home but also their restaurant has been banned and he has to take odd jobs wherever he can find them.
 

He has a tumultuous relationship with the park management. Jantha accuses the park management of corruption and of failing to adequately protect the forest; he says trees are being illegally cut down and sold across the border. He has felt very obstructed by the Apsara Authority, who regularly come by to keep an eye on him