We came to the floating village of Peak Kantel by boat at the very end of the dry season. Ben Sok, the village chief, whose 78 years made him older than most Cambodians, welcomed us in his boat house. He offered grilled eel and tea and a long story about his village’s struggle to be… a village.

Ben Sok suggested we stay the night in the village school, a blue floating wooden primary, with a wooden railing where we could hang our hammocks and mosquito nets at nightfall. Evidently, the school was his pride. Very soon he came to tell us of the incident over a year earlier when government officials, accompanied by armed police, gendarmerie and military, came to take the school away. It was planned as the first step of evicting Peak Kantel.

For several years, the authorities have appeared determined to evict Peak Kantel on account of it not being a formal village, a status it lost during the civil war. But local human rights workers are certain that Peak Kantel fulfils all the criteria for the Ministry of Interior to give it village status again.

The problem, according to activists who support the village, is that its residents are an inconvenience to large-scale illegal fisheries in their vicinity – a core area in the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve. Its important bird sanctuary, water-covered forests and valuable spawning grounds have given the Reserve national park status - but the illegal fisheries are unrelenting. Those in charge of such fishing operations have the money and connections to influence the authorities, which according to local activists is the true rationale behind the threat of eviction.

“In this day and age those with money and power can do what they want,” one human rights defender told us. “The authorities know about what is going on here; they know about the illegal fishing methods used.”

As the representatives of the government and the armed forces approached the school that day, to cut the ropes that moored it, the villagers paddled to stop them. Even the children, who were having maths classes when the police stormed in, climbed onto chains and ropes to protect the school’s moorings. After a five hour stand-off, the armed forces backed down - but left with a firm promise to return.

By March 2006, the authorities had not returned, but the threat of eviction had been verbally repeated. Living under threat of eviction was tiring, but the success to save the school had clearly empowered the villagers. They had filed petitions to the King and the Prime Minister, were visited by the OHCHR and even sent a villager to present their case in distant Phnom Penh. They also organised themselves with the help of an environment agency - learning about the law and wildlife and how to better protect their surroundings.

The first night we stayed in Peak Kantel a massive thunderstorm woke me in the wee hours: wind tearing the hammock, the soaked mosquito net glued to my face. We quickly rescued our equipment and scurried into one of the classrooms, where the teachers who lived there helped us build cots from the children’s benches.

Through the heavy downpours, I could see that a dozen or so small boats had arrived in the roaring storm to take refuge in the village, mooring to the bigger boat houses and to the school. Samon, one of the teachers, said this always happened. Peak Kantel had first been established in 1952 as a storm shelter and would remain a shelter for fishermen, merchants and travellers for as long as they were there.

In a way, the threat of eviction seemed peculiar for this floating village, which changes location with the drastic shifts in water levels across the seasons in the Tonle Sap. I asked the village chief how many times the village moves every year. He looked baffled.

“We never move. We just follow the water.”

Brittis Edman is a researcher in the Amnesty International department responsible for carrying out research and organising campaigns about Asia.