CBGA Chairman / Co-founder

Johnny ORN the managing director and co-founder for Cambodia Bird Guide Association was born in Battambang province during the Pol Pot regime. He was moved to a refugee camp at an early age until 1991 when he was captured by remnant Khmer Rouge to serve the service in Pailin City for ruby mining until 1996 when he could escape and had to walk 90km with his friend back to Battambang to see his family.

Before he started to join the wildlife conservation in 2009 as a bird guide at Sam Veasna Center, Johnny first was a teacher for primary school for 3 years; 1 year in military; an English teacher in 2003-2005 and then as a director for the same school (International Language School) and he was also a licensed temple guide back then.

By his hardworking, passion, and enthusiasm during his bird guiding when he led many birding tours across Cambodia, and was offered a position as the Program and Stakeholder Manager in 2011 at Sam Veasna Center, and in that following year he was promoted by the board to be the director for the center from April 2012 to November 2016. Even though, many significant works have accomplished it is still not enough for him so he decided to join Cambodia Bird Guide Association to continue his passion for wildlife conservation, environmental education, and local livelihood which all these can be achieved via eco-tourism. His mission to build up skills and knowledge in conservation work to young generations in Cambodia. And to him, Cambodia needs sustainable green development to decrease the level of destruction of natural heritage, together with CBGA he believes it would happen.

Johnny has many pieces of training such as the recent Global Sustainable Development and Green Destination Policy in 2018 and won its certificate.

Johnny is a strong conservationist, yet easy to get along with and good in leadership and communication allowing him to have a wide communication and connection worldwide with birders and ornithologists. He loves birding, traveling, and meeting people around the world and introduce to them on how beautiful Cambodia is. He went on missions adding up knowledge about birds and conservation. During his work, he has traveled to some countries such as Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippine, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea, and England.