Revealing footage shows how money-spinning jungle survival videos are faked - leaving a trail of destruction and scarred landscape.

The bizarre genre of Asian men seemingly building extravagant buildings in forests has amassed billions of views on YouTube - earning vast sums for the channels.

However, aerial drone footage from Siem Reap, Cambodia, captures large teams of builders working on the projects. While on the ground after they have finished, the dog houses, swimming pools and slides are left to rot with stagnant water and plastic bags strewn across the abandoned building sites - causing a risk to local wildlife.

Pictures show the young lads with cameras rigged up and celebrating receiving awards from YouTube, owned by Google's parent company Alphabet.

Some viewers have even complained the videos are racist by pandering to a stereotype of developing inhabitants living in the jungle grunting while they scrape huts together with their hands.

While in a country where deforestation is one of the worst in the world, environmentalists believe the videos are accelerating the decline of habitat and creating dangerous conditions for wildlife.

A cameraman who worked on one of the channels revealed how at least eight builders work on the projects and use modern tools including diggers, power generators and electric saws.

He said: ‘It's a large operation with a large team behind it. It depends on the scale of the project but no fewer than a dozen people will work on them.

‘I find it very funny that there's a director for the acting, but it is so poor that it fools some viewers.

‘There is also a hired architect to obviously make sure the structure will not collapse and will last long enough to film in. Obviously after, there are many editors involved.

'Approximately 70 per cent of the digging is done by machinery and 30 per cent is done by men.

‘Most of the actual construction is done by a hired team of specialized builders from my understanding and they work with only intrinsic tools. The dirt is removed by skid steer loaders and off-loaded somewhere else and skid steer loaders are used for the initial boring process, while incrementally we film the builders doing superficial works on the hole.

‘A very funny part of the videos is when you see them ‘sourcing' water from some magnificent waterfall or lake. The water just comes in cubic containers that are transported there.'

Shocking footage taken by an ex-pat living in the country shows the mess left by the teams behind the YouTube channels. He said it had destroyed the fields and would take years for nature to reclaim them.

Most damning is proof that the videos are faked to deceive viewers. In the videos, cement bags are seen left behind - the ‘termite cement' or mud collected from a river as claimed in the finished videos.

Swimming pools, which portray water being siphoned from a stream six miles away, are actually filled with water pumped from wells.

There are even Home Depot blue PVC pipes hidden inside lengths of bamboo that the makers claim are primitive 'jungle pipes'.

Eagle-eyed viewers have also noticed marks from excavators on the surface and spray paint on the ground for markings, contradicting claims the paint is naturally made from crushed leaves and berries.

The clean cuts on wood show how electric circular saws are used and not naturally hacked with knives.

Environmentalists fear that deforestation in Cambodia will accelerate in the coming years as rapid economic development financed by China leads to jungles being flattened for agriculture and property.

Amnesty International claims Cambodia has experienced one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, losing about 64 per cent of its tree cover since 2011.

Richard Pearshouse, Amnesty International's head of crisis and environment, said: ‘Rampant illegal logging in Cambodia is posing an existential threat to the country's remaining primary forests, and the indigenous peoples who depend on them for their livelihoods, their culture and their spiritual practices.

‘Cambodia's approach to conservation is characterised by official corruption and a complete disregard for indigenous people's rights. If the Cambodian authorities don't change course soon, the country's protected forests will be illegally logged into oblivion.'

On YouTube, some viewers appear to be duped by the slickly produced videos. While others point out how unrealistic some of the features are.

One said: ‘I've always felt these videos are racist in some way, like the idea of how an ignorant person thinks life in the tropics or third world is, where they don't have too many resources but a lot of time on their hands.'

A civil engineer from watching the video said the ‘earth cement was incredibly fake' and there are ‘lots of signs of human stupidity'.

He commented: ‘Even in ancient times, nobody would be so stupid as to make pools without drainage and leave still water, especially in the tropics because of the insects it would generate.'

They said that the videos were ‘fake, dangerous and misleading'.

He added: ‘They barely show any survival skills, as the construction methodologies involve the use of modern materials disguised as ‘primitive'.'