Platinum certification under the Green Growth 2050 standard requires a score above 90 percent across more than 400 indicators. It is held by a short list of global names: thirty properties in the Minor Hotels group, the St. Regis Bangkok, Niyama in the Maldives. Nearly all belong to groups with sustainability departments and budgets to match.

The actress and MMA champion came to the Knai Bang Chatt to breathe. She left wondering how little she knew of her own coast — and thinking about what Jef Moons is trying to build there.

By the sea, three old villas built for a governor, a relative of the king and a senior customs official tell, between them, the whole fate of Kep: colonial splendour, the war that swallowed everything, then a patient rebirth carried by lovers of Khmer heritage. This is the story of Knai Bang Chatt.

A few dozen minutes off the coast of Kep, a former wartime outpost is being reborn as a sanctuary for Cambodia's marine life. Marine Conservation Cambodia, a partner of Kep West's Art for Kep programme, runs its research base here — and Kep West organises trips out to the island for guests curious to see the work firsthand.

More than sixty artists, gallerists, and journalists gathered Tuesday evening at the Sosoro Museum in Phnom Penh for the public unveiling of "Ten Boats+," the open call at the heart of Kep International Art Week's first edition, this December.

Nestling in the heart of splendid green spaces, the natural charm of the RiverTree hotel complex lures guests away from city life for a...

Art for Kep has opened "Ten Boats+," an international call inviting artists, collectives, organizations, and communities to transform ten or more retired wooden fishing boats from Kep into contemporary artworks, ahead of Kep International Art Week — Edition 01, taking place 11–14 December 2026 on Cambodia's southern coast.

Art for Kep has opened "Ten Boats+," an international call inviting artists, collectives, organizations, and communities to transform ten or more retired wooden fishing boats from Kep into contemporary artworks, ahead of Kep International Art Week — Edition 01, taking place 11–14 December 2026 on Cambodia's southern coast.

On 7 August 2026, the Cambodia Tourism Board (CTB) and the Art for Kep association signed a partnership agreement in Kep aimed at raising the town's international profile, along with the future S.E.A. Ocean Gallery, which will become Southeast Asia's first underwater art museum off its coast.

There are towns that serve seafood, and there is Kep. Long before the phrase "farm to table" entered anyone's vocabulary, Kep's fishermen were already living it — hauling in blue crab and mackerel at dawn, selling it still glistening at the market by the water an hour later.

Just a few kilometres from Kampot, between pepper plantations and karst hills, a stretch of water carries a name that is both intriguing and misleading: the Secret Lake. Far from being a simple scenic spot, this man-made body of water holds the memory of a dark period in Cambodian history. Today, Kep West's Discovery Center runs kayak trips here, gliding silently between drowned trees and water lilies, through one of the most striking landscapes in the province.

On the southern coast of Cambodia, facing the sea that lines Kep Bay, three former private villas have become one of the most singular retreats in Southeast Asia. Here, nothing is decorative by chance: every jar, every wall, every light switch carries a story. This is the inside story of Knai Bang Chatt, told the way you might tell the story of a country.

At the end of a wooden pier battered by winds off the gulf, under sun-bleached parasols, a handful of families have kept up the same routine for a century: sorting, tying, cooking and selling Kep's blue crab. Psar Kdam, the “crab market,” is not simply a tasty stop on the road to Kampot. It is the living memory of a town that lost almost everything — except its bond with the sea.

From 4 August 2026, artist Anya Minko will take up a two-week residency at Art for Kep, turning her attention from the rivers and forests she has painted for years to the salt air, tides and fishing villages of Cambodia's south coast.

A small, jewel-toned fish has just made a formal entrance into Cambodia's marine biodiversity records. The blackspot razorfish (Iniistius evides) has been officially recorded in Cambodian waters for the first time, the result of a collaboration between Marine Conservation Cambodia (MCC) and the Royal University of Agriculture.

Saturday, July 18, 2026, from 6pm, The Wave hosts “Melody & Joe,” a music night presented by Art for Kep pairing a rising voice of Cambodia's pop-jazz scene with the vintage guitar sound of a British musician based in Phnom Penh.

Ten years ago, the Kep archipelago was an exhausted sea: seagrass meadows ploughed under, dugongs gone, dolphins reduced to rumour. Today that same sea carries an international label, a quarter of a vast national restoration plan is already deployed, and fishermen are watching species they thought lost for good come back. A look back at two decades of stubborn work that turned this forgotten corner of the gulf into one of Southeast Asia's finest marine conservation success st

In Kep's Waters, a Millennial Creature Reclaims Its Seagrass Meadows — and Restores Hope to an Entire Sea.

There are encounters that change everything. In 2003, a Belgian entrepreneur named Jef Moons found himself riding through the jungles of Kep, a forgotten little port on Cambodia's southern coast. At a bend in a dirt path, three modernist villas emerge from the vegetation — silent remnants of Khmer golden age, abandoned since the dark years of Cambodian history.

Cambodia innovates with the S.E.A. Ocean Gallery, Asia's first large-scale underwater museum, located off the coast of Kep. This project fuses contemporary art, marine restoration, and local culture to transform the coast into an ecological and artistic hub.

In Kep, art is now envisioned as a bridge between the sea, the local community, and environmental preservation. In this landscape undergoing a cultural renaissance, the book Kep Raw 2026 (Blurb, 2026) stands out as a singular graphic voice, carried by the Art for Kep artist residency.

The Art for Kep association, active in cultural promotion in Cambodia, is opening applications for the Cinematic Artist Challenge 2026. Under the evocative theme “Kep in 3 Minutes – Our People, Our Culture, Our Ocean,” this call invites local and international creators to produce original works exactly three minutes long.

In the misty highlands of Cambodia and along the winding roads that run along the southern coast, a unique spirit reigns: Yeay Mao, the legendary matriarch and protector of travellers, fishermen and hunters.

Dive with us into the turquoise waters of Cambodia's Kep archipelago. Just a few meters below the surface, microscopic creatures—smaller than a grain of sand—play a crucial role in saving marine ecosystems devastated by illegal fishing.