Forests and forestry

The U.K. NGO that last week exposed a major new timber trafficking operation between Cambodia and Vietnam has released more evidence in hopes of supporting Phnom Penh’s investigation into its claims, including invoices from Cambodia-based companies breaking the country’s timber export ban. ...

Police officers, gendarmes and Forestry Administration officials yesterday discovered a large cache of valuable, illegally felled wood – which locals say was destined for Vietnam – after raiding a house in Stung Treng province linked to a prominent timber trader. ...

One of four new mining exploration permits, advertised publicly this week, is within the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary map, coordinates reveal, sparking concern among activists and community members about the strength of the forest’s recently-acquired protected status.In the first public tender of fresh exploration licenses ...

Fourteen community representatives speaking for thousands of families yesterday petitioned the South Korean Embassy, Environment Ministry and Forestry Administration to halt the expansion of a controversial “reforestation” project by a Korean company situated between the protected Prey Lang forest and Mekong River. Their petition – ...

An environmental ranger and a village chief were questioned yesterday by the Pailin Provincial Court for allegedly colluding to grab, clear and sell land in a protected area supported by the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, according to officials. ...

Authorities intercepted four trucks carrying 81 pieces of illegal luxury timber at a checkpoint in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district last Friday, District Military Police Commader Sok Min said yesterday. ...

Cambodian and Vietnamese officials have received millions of dollars in bribes from Vietnamese timber traders as part of a cross-border “conspiracy” to log vast swathes of Ratanakkiri province and funnel the timber to Vietnam, according to a damning report by the Environmental Investigation Agency released ...

Villagers in Preah Vihear’s Choam Ksan district confronted a group of soldiers, preventing them from felling timber in their community forest by confiscating one of their trucks, a local official said yesterday. ...

A conservation NGO official yesterday said he planned to ask microfinance lenders to better scrutinise their loans after a spate of cases over the last month showed that such loans had been used by illegal loggers to purchase chainsaws and tractors for transporting timber. ...

More than a tonne of rosewood and the plateless car carrying it were seized in Oddar Meanchey province yesterday after authorities received a report about a Vietnamese woman and her workers trying to set the vehicle on fire. ...

Environment Ministry officials in Ratanakkiri province are hunting for timber traders who on Sunday set ablaze 300 logs of luxury wood in Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, one of several protected areas raided by Vietnamese loggers in recent months. ...

Police in Ratanakkiri province Thursday’stopped a bus and arrested two Vietnamese men—the driver and a bus company employee—who were attempting to transport about 300 kg of luxury-grade timber across the border to Vietnam, officials said. ...

Around 600 hectares of the protected Southern Cardamom National Park in Koh Kong have been illegally cleared and sold off for cultivation since 2013, sometimes by local authorities, according to the conservation organisation Wildlife Alliance. ...

The manager of an illegal timber warehouse owned by Lieutenant General Chheng Long was arrested in Kampong Speu on Wednesday, although Long and his son-in-law remain at large. ...

Authorities in Vietnam’s Gia Lai province have recently stopped at least nine overloaded timber trucks crossing into the country from the Kingdom, despite the Cambodian government ostensibly banning wood exports to its eastern neighbour, according to a Vietnamese news report. ...

Ratanakkiri provincial authorities yesterday seized a large cache of luxury wood and arrested four people about to sell the timber to Vietnam. ...

The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization, a conservation organisation in Kampong Speu, pledged yesterday to file a letter of complaint to authorities after learning that 6 hectares of protected forestland were cleared illegally. ...

Customs officers have released a pair of trucks that local officials said were seized late last month while being used to smuggle timber belonging to business mogul Kith Meng into Vietnam in breach of a government ban, according to police. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called on the Agriculture Ministry to do more to prevent land grabbing in the country’s endangered flooded forests.Speaking at the closing ceremony of the Agriculture Ministry’s annual meeting yesterday, Mr. Hun Sen said encroachment risks wiping out fish populations that ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province have confiscated about 700 small pieces of luxury-grade wood found on an empty plot of land belonging to Yeay Pralit, a timber trader whom local authorities had long suspected of committing forest crimes, deputy provincial court prosecutor Hak Phoan said on ...

A stockpile of illegal timber was reportedly found on the land of a district military police chief in Kampong Speu province, while his son-in-law and alleged timber trader Sy Sar remains at large. ...

Some 200 hectares of forest in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary have been cleared and sold for up to $400 per hectare – allegedly with an official’s blessing – while an additional 700 hectares around the protected area face clearing. ...

Authorities in Tbong Khmum province seized two trucks that were about to break the government’s ban on timber exports to Vietnam by carting wood across the border for a company owned by business mogul Kith Meng. ...

Members of the prime minister’s anti-logging task force who had been looking into officials’alleged collusion with Vietnamese timber smugglers in Mondulkiri has ended its 10-day investigation. ...