Forest products

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday implored authorities along Cambodia’s northern border to redouble their efforts at stopping illegal loggers from sneaking into Thailand, where more than a dozen have been shot dead by Thai soldiers so far this year. The 13 Cambodians fatally shot by Thai ...

Kampong Thom province Villagers patrolling Prey Lang forest claimed yesterday that about 600 resin trees they found inside a sawmill in the Kampong Thom province had been cut down illegally – an allegation government officials quickly denied. After resistance from police and soldiers monitoring their actions this ...

Kampong Thom province Villagers patrolling Prey Lang forest on motorbikes yesterday defended their decision to burn more than 360 cubic metres of timber, tear down 10 huts used by “illegal loggers” and confiscate a chainsaw, a villager representative said. “All the villagers who provide evidence about ...

Hundreds of villagers patrolling Prey Long forest for illegal logging discovered and burned more than 370 cubic meters of wood during the first four days of their campaign, an organizer said yesterday. About 400 villagers from Kompong Thom, Kratie, Stung Treng and Preah Vihear provinces who ...

Kampong Thom province Police and soldiers have been deployed to Prey Lang forest to monitor the activities of about 500 villagers patrolling for illegal loggers, a police official said yesterday. The police and military officers gathered along a road leading to the CRCK rubber company, which has ...

Cambodia border police arrested 12 people last week who attempted to cross illegally from Preah Vihear province into Thailand to log rosewood, officials said yesterday. .. ...

Rangers paid by an internationally funded conservation organisation have been directly profiting for years from the very trade they are supposed to be preventing in southwest Cambodia, documents obtained by the Post allege. Former Conservation International (CI) staff members say when they spoke up about endemic ...

One man was killed and one injured in two separate shooting incidents that took place last week at the borders with Thailand and Laos, officials said yesterday. In both cases, the Cambodians are believed to have been shot while illegally logging highly coveted luxury rosewood in ...

Kampong Thom province About 500 frustrated villagers, citing the authorities’ inaction as their motivation, rode some 250 motorbikes into Prey Lang forest over the weekend in yet another effort to combat illegal logging they say is decimating the area. The villagers from four provinces surrounding Prey Lang ...

A Cambodian man was injured last week after Lao authorities shot him while he was illegally logging rosewood in Laos’ Champasak district, near Stung Treng province, authorities said yesterday. Siem Pang district police chief Var Sophan told the Post yesterday that 27-year-old Sarin Da was accompanied ...

The inquiry that targeted Hun To, dubbed Operation Illipango, investigated the shipment of heroin into Australia from Cambodia in loads of timber. Hun To, a nephew of Prime Minister Hun Sen, is a powerful and feared figure in Cambodia. He was once considered a close business ...

Echoing longstanding calls from conservation groups, the World Bank says in a new report today that governments need to look past low-level criminals to tackle illegal logging and to follow the money the illicit trade generates instead. That trade of illegal logging generates up to $15 ...

Laos yesterday released seven of 23 Cambodians who have been apprehended across the border since the start of the year on suspicions of illegal logging, according to a military and district official. ...

Forestry officials in Ratanakkiri province, along with provincial officials, have carried out several operations in three districts this month that netted about 100 cubic meters of various types of luxury wood, but no suspects were arrested, officials said yesterday. ...

For the second time in a month, Forestry Administration officials in Kratie province’s Snuol district have found hundreds of cubic meters of first-grade wood that had been smuggled to a site near the tributary of the Prek Pao river, officials said yesterday. As in previous wood ...

More than 600 villagers from four provinces and civil society organisation officials would em­bark on the largest community crackdown yet on the “anarchic logging” of Prey Lang forest in Kampong Thom, representatives said yesterday. ...

Faced with the rapid loss of vast tracts of forest across Cambodia, local communities have begun to fight back, and a growing number of villagers are now organizing their own aggressive forest patrols in order to save the forests on which they have relied for ...

A Thai military official said yesterday 38 Cambodians arrested in Thailand on Monday were among a group of about 70 allegedly attempting to smuggle luxury rosewood out of Sisaket province. A source close to Thai defence spokesman Col Thanatip Sawangsaeng, who spoke on condition of anonymity, ...

Villagers from all five communes of Kratie province’s Snuol district began patrolling the Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday in a bid to protect the area from illegal loggers, in the second multiday crackdown undertaken by residents this year. ...

A combined task force of Thai soldiers and national park officials yesterday arrested 38 Cambodian villagers who encroached on the Panom Dong Rak Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand’s Si Sa Ket province, which borders Oddar Meanchey province. Thai National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department chief Damrong ...

Two days after extending indefinitely a ban on commercial fishing in Tonle Sap Lake, Prime Minister Hun Sen on Friday called for the release of all prisoners detained during the government crackdown, officials close to the premier said yesterday. Deputy Prime Minister Yim Chhayli told the ...

Local human rights group Adhoc has requested provincial approval to stage a large-scale march later this month involving hundreds of indigenous minorities embroiled in a land dispute in Ratanakiri province. The demonstration is being organized to bring attention to what minority villagers claim is judicial ...

Forestry officials and police in Siem Reap province’s Banteay Srei district seized a car transporting more than 100 pieces of illegally logged rosewood on Wednesday night, the 10th haul of the luxury wood in the province since January, according to a court official. Despite the efforts ...

Cambodian border officials urged their Thai counterparts not to shoot Cambodians who cross into Thailand illegally during a special meeting in Siem Reap city yesterday to cement border relations. The request comes as Thai soldiers have already fatally shot 11 Cambodians this year who illegally ...