For Sari Math’s family in Cambodia, development means more people are fishing in the waters near their village. Some use large traps or dynamite to catch more fish. As a result, the fish are disappearing — and so is the income for Sari Math’s family.

“They are Cham Muslim, they speak a very distinct language, they have a very distinct culture, and it’s a very distinct religion. And, you know, without their source of livelihood which is fishing, you know their life could change, you know, dramatically, and it is changing dramatically.”

By the end of the film, Sari Math is 16. He has had to quit school. And he has left his floating village. Even though he is trained as a fisherman, he is looking for a job on a cassava farm.

Kimseng Men is a reporter for VOA’s Khmer service. He says historically in Cambodia, most people lived in villages with their families. They earned money from farming, fishing and the forest. But these days things are different.

“You wake up one day, you see the sound of a bulldozer coming to bulldoze your forest, your plantation.”

He says people in this position often sell their land. In some cases this is because their neighbors have already sold their land to a developer. In other cases people do not even have a choice.

“For example, some people live in the area for ten, twenty years, and then one day the court would say, you’re illegal because you have no paperwork. And the new owner coming in, they have proper legal paper. And they are the rightful owner. So things like this happen.”