Forest products

Two Apsara Authority officials were arrested yesterday morning after it was discovered they were in charge of felling a centuries-old spirit tree in Siem Reap province’s Kauk Chak commune on Saturday, enraging residents who had worshipped it for years, according to the provincial governor. ...

A mixed group of nearly 40 officials based at the Cambodian-Thai border in Pailin province seized first-class timber on Wednesday, but failed to catch the suspects who illegally entered Thailand to log it, according to police yesterday. ...

Five men accused of illegal logging in the Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary after being caught by a joint patrol of authorities, villagers and monks should be charged with deforestation, a Preah Vihear provincial prosecutor said on Tuesday. ...

Stung Treng provincial military police discovered four separate stockpiles of illegal timber over the past two days amounting to thousands of cubic meters, but have yet to report any arrests. ...

Three members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) were attacked in Kratie province on Thursday by men believed to be involved in illegal logging, PLCN activists said yesterday.​ ...

A total of 60,000 cubic meters of illegally-felled luxury timber confiscated by the National Anti-Deforestation Committee (NADC) sold at auction yesterday for $15 million, $3 million above the reserve price. Soung Meng Kea, chairman of the subcommittee running the auction and undersecretary of state at the ...

Nearly 500 pieces of illegal first-grade timber were seized in a series of busts conducted by police across three different provinces this week. ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district were thwarted in their attempt to inspect an ethnic Jarai community’s timber stocks on Tuesday, with some officials and observers ascribing the incident to a clash of cultures. ...

Mondulkiri’s provincial governor yesterday said officials are investigating allegations of the clearing of 200 to 300 hectares of protected forestland in Keo Seima district. ...

A recent government report on protecting the country’s natural resources reveals that a total of 1,166 crimes were recorded, but only 873 ended up in court and only 293 of those cases resulted in small fines being issued. The report from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry ...

Illegal forest clearing is taking place at about three times the rate it did last year, but fines for forestry and wildlife crimes have fallen dramatically, according to a progress report released last week by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries (MAFF). ...

Suspected timber smugglers have gotten off the hook in the vast majority of busts that have followed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s January call for a crackdown on the illegal timber trade, a Post analysis has revealed. In the wake of the prime minister’s creation of ...

Well-known timber trafficker Heng Samneang was charged on Sunday with illegal logging and interfering with the work of public officials, according to a Phnom Penh Municipal Court officer, days after she allegedly tried to retrieve some of her ill-gotten timber with the help of a ...

Military police said they arrested a well-known timber trafficker in Stung Treng province on Thursday after she and a group of stick-wielding thugs attempted to retrieve a pile of wood officers had seized a day earlier. ...

Authorities in Kompong Speu province on Wednesday seized more than 1,000 logs on the property of a Chinese-owned sugarcane plantation, marking the third time the firm has been found with illicit timber in the past year. Local officials offered no explanation for why the plantation’s on-site ...

Despite numerous laws and committees created to tackle deforestation and illegal logging in Cambodia, the timber trade has continued unabated. In another attempt to deal with the issue, authorities across the country have been ordered to ensure they execute their responsibilities to oversee the enforcement of ...

The Ministry of Environment signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) yesterday with two Chinese companies to study planting “Paulownia-Guotong” – an extremely fast-growing tree used to make furniture and wooden equipment – and practice growing it in Cambodia. Speaking at a workshop on a feasibility ...

Environmental campaigner and Areng Valley community leader Ven Vorn lost his appeal against his one-year suspended sentence for “collecting forest products without permission” yesterday at the Appeals Court. Judge Kim Danny did not give reasons why the court decided to uphold the March ruling of the ...

Cambodian forests, some of the most biologically diverse areas in the world, are vanishing fast as a result of the Vietnamese, Chinese and Cambodian political interests. Cambodia has one of the largest deforestation rates in the world. Forest Trends, an influential organization with a mission to conserve ...

A Toyota SUV and the load of illegally logged luxury wood found inside it on Monday belong to the wife of a district police chief in Tbong Khmum province, according to local officials, who say they have no intention of taking action against the couple. “We ...

The government’s anti-logging task force on Monday confiscated nearly 3,000 logs stashed in a forest clearing in Mondolkiri province, officials said on Tuesday. The owner of the 2,949 pieces of second-grade timber—Khlong, Tbeng and Trach—is unknown, said Eng Hy, spokesman for the National Military Police, which ...

A group of environmental NGOs working to protect the Prey Lang forest called on the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to intervene and protect the region’s resin trees, or they will all be logged within six months, they claimed in a joint-statement issued yesterday. The ...

Newly declared protected areas in Prey Lang forest are being illegally logged by companies belonging to a three-star general and his sister, according to Goldman Environmental Prize-winning conservationist Ouch Leng and NGOs with which he is working. Leng, along with 15 NGO officers, patrollers and ...

The National Committee for Forest Crime Prevention has admitted that despite claims from a variety of high-level government officials that deforestation and illegal logging had been stopped entirely, the illegal timber trade was still ravaging the country’s forests. In June, Environment Minister Say Samal claimed the ...