Forest products

The majority shareholder of Timbergreen, a firm that has been the centre of illegal logging allegations, has denied the company is in any way involved in the illicit trade of timber. The company has gained significant attention since prominent environmental activist Chut Wutty, who had made ...

An estimated 600 people will travel to parts of the Cardamom Mountains in Koh Kong province to investigate illegal logging and commemorate the death of slain environment activist Chut Wutty tomorrow. Communities from eight provinces that have been affected by deforestation will travel to Koh Kong ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has issued an immediate and indefinite moratorium on the granting of new economic land concessions and called for a review of all existing concessions, a regulation signed by the premier yesterday states. Dated to an April 27 Council of Ministers’ meeting, the ...

A Ministry of Agriculture official said yesterday he was aware of allegations of illegal logging by Royal Cambodian Armed Forces soldiers within protected community forests in Oddar Meanchey province and was looking into it. “I am following this case, but I haven’t received their petition yet,” ...

Two journalists from the Cambodia Daily newspaper have been called to appear in the shooting case of activist Chut Wutty last month. Chut Wutty had been escorting the two journalists, Cambodian Phorn Bopha and Canadian Olesia Plokhii, to investigate illegal logging ...

The Thai Foreign Ministry has called on the Cambodian government to admit that its citizens are illegally logging for rosewood on Thai territory, The Bangkok Post reported yesterday. Cambodia should admit to the situation to preserve healthy bilateral relations between Phnom Penh and Bangkok, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Thani Thongphakdi said ...

Chemical substances used in about 3,000 mining drills operating in the Prey Lang forest in Kratie and Kampong Thom provinces are wreaking environmental havoc and making people sick, a report by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights released yesterday says. Substances used by a number of ...

Over the past half year, the military has established dozens of bases in protected community forests in Oddar Meanchey province and used them as an inroad for rampant illegal logging, villagers and forestry administration officials said yesterday. Nearly 2,000 villagers from local forest communities have thumbprinted ...

At a meeting with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had admitted Cambodians were conducting illegal logging and that Thai authorities were right to attempt to defend their territory. On Saturday, 20 natural resource protection officials from Si Sa Ket province which borders ...

The Cambodian government on Saturday said it had closed its investigation into the fatal shootings of a well-known activist and a military police officer after the arrest of a security guard. Ran Boroth accidentally shot dead In Rattana, a military policeman who had just gunned down ...

One week after the shooting deaths of forestry activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana, a suspect was sent to the Koh Kong Provincial Court for questioning late yesterday evening before being remanded to military police custody, a court official said. “The prosecutor hasn’t ...

The “company” that military police have declined to identify but said sent staff to confront activist Chut Wutty shortly before he was shot last Thursday is Timbergreen, a firm the slain activist had attempted to expose for illegal logging. Documents obtained by the Post yesterday and sources have ...

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday called on the government to ensure its investigation into the deaths of forestry activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana remained independent, and raised concern over an apparent increase in attacks on ...

A joint investigative committee will be established to re-examine the killing of activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana, the head of the armed forces told the Post yesterday, after providing his own version of the incident to radio. Pressure from the families of victims and ...

The United Nations human rights office called on Cambodia on Tuesday to carry out a full investigation into the killing of an anti-logging activist and to ensure the safety of witnesses to the crime in which a policeman was also shot dead. Chut Wutty, director of ...

Amid mounting calls for further investigation, officials said yesterday they were establishing a task force to look into the death of outspoken forestry activist Chut Wutty, while the family of the military police officer who allegedly killed Chut Wutty before turning the gun on himself ...

Deep in Koh Kong’s forested district on Thursday, Chut Wutty, 46, the founder of the Natural Resource Protection Group, and In Rattana, 32, a military police officer, were shot dead. Chut Wutty, a forestry activist who has dedicated himself to preserving Cambodia’s disappearing forests since ...

The military police officer who killed well-known anti-logging campaigner Chut Wutty, 46, on Thursday in Koh Kong province then died by his own hand after turning his AK-47 assault rifle on himself in an apparent act of instant suicide following the slaying of the forestry ...

With his slaying yesterday in the jungles of Koh Kong province, Chut Wutty becomes one of the highest-profile members yet on a dark list of Cambodian activists who have been killed for making a stand against greed and corruption. Although the details of his death remain ...

The wife of slain environmental activist Chut Wutty today rejected early police accounts of the circumstances around his shooting death, saying she believed he had been targeted for death for his work in protecting Cambodia’s endangered forests. Speaking to the Post by phone, 40-year-old Sam Chanthy, ...

The Cambodian military has concluded that one of its own police officers killed a prominent environmentalist then took his own life in an incident in a forest rife with illegal logging. Chut Wutty had been taking photographs on Wednesday in a forest where a Chinese company ...

Cambodia’s most outspoken activist against illegal logging was shot dead today while escorting journalists near a protected forest in Koh Kong province, where he has repeatedly attempted to expose illegal logging rackets that include military officials. Chut Wutty, the director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday told senior officials to stop investors from using land concessions as a pretext for logging and to discuss the possibility of reducing the amount of time such concessions can last. The government placed a moratorium on logging concessions in 2002 to ...

Thai and Cambodian foreign affairs officials have pledged to step up their efforts to stem the fatal shooting of Cambodians who illegally cross the border into Thailand to cut down rosewood trees, which fetch thousands of dollars per cubic meter on the black market. At a ...