Forestry Industry

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

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. ...

Eleven Vietnamese men and two Cambodian men have been arrested for border crossing offenses and logging in protected forests. Interior Ministry immigration police officer Bun Chantha said the Cambodians and seven of the Vietnamese were arrested in Rattanakiri province’s Lumphat district on Monday.   ...

At least 70 timber smugglers transporting some 200 cubic metres of illegal first- and second-grade wood were stopped by authorities in the Phnom O’ral Wildlife Sanctuary over the weekend, before being allowed to leave without charges and still in possession of the illegal timber. ...

Two military commanders, a military police commander and a provincial police chief in Mondulkiri were questioned by the national military police’s anti-logging task force yesterday for their alleged involvement in a Vietnamese timber smuggling operation. ...

More than 10 police and military officers in Mondulkiri province have been summoned for questioning over a big corruption case involving illegal timber exports to Vietnam. ...

Mondulkiri provincial environment officials and National Military Police early yesterday morning confiscated a seemingly abandoned Toyota Land Cruiser loaded with more than 10 poles of luxury thnong timber in the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, though no arrests were made. ...

South Korea will manage the replanting of trees on former economic land concessions—with an eye toward eventually entering Cambodia’s logging industry—under a tentative agreement between the two countries, Agriculture Minister Veng Sakhon said on Wednesday.   ...

The Mondulkiri Provincial Court is preparing to investigate accusations that Cambodian border officials last month knowingly allowed seven Vietnamese loggers to illegally fell trees in the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, a court official said yesterday. ...

Seven Vietnamese nationals were arrested during a timber bust on Wednesday when Mondulkiri authorities intercepted eight trucks loaded with illegal timber in the Keo Seima protected area. ...

Try Pheap, director general of the Try Pheap Group and widely known for his extensive involvement in the kingdom’s timber trade, told a government news outlet yesterday that he has ended his involvement in the logging business and did not burn down a lumber warehouse ...

More than 700 logs, many of them luxury timber, were discovered in Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary in Ratanikkiri province on Sunday, according to local military police, though the loggers were nowhere in sight. ...

More than 400 families in Preah Vihear province submitted a petition to a group of NGOs and the UN yesterday, seeking assistance in their battle with the government over 3,555 hectares of protected land that sits within the Kulen Prom-Tep Wildlife Sanctuary. According to Sokha, ...

The government issued a statement yesterday allowing Lim Royal Joint Stock Company to create a temporary wood and furniture manufacturing plant in Trapeang Srae village in Kratie province.According to an announcement signed by Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Veng Sakhon last Thursday, Lim Royal will ...

The director of Mondulkiri’s rural development department stands accused of clearing about 50 hectares of state-owned forest for his own farming purposes, authorities said yesterday. ...

Government officials say they are investigating the causes of two separate weekend fires in Mondolkiri province that reportedly burned through hundreds of high-value logs the government had sold to a businessman after confiscating them from a pair of rubber plantations. ...

Nine Phnong ethnic community representatives and a senior Adhoc officer jointly filed a lawsuit yesterday at the Mondulkiri Provincial Court against eight local officials they allege have turned a blind eye to illegal logging in the Phnom Nam Lyr wildlife sanctuary.The suit follows their inspection ...