Forests and forestry

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. ...

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. ...

Eleven wild elephants were rescued on Saturday in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima protected area after becoming trapped in a former bomb crater without food for four days, though rangers will continue to monitor the herd to ensure it reaccepts one juvenile who was handled by humans ...

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. ...

Officials are still investigating an arson attack on a Mondolkiri province community forestry monitoring office by dozens of masked farmers on Friday, in what they suspect was retaliation for preventing the farmers from growing cassava in a protected area. ...

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. ...

Prey Lang Community Network conservation activists in Kratie province have accused local officials of colluding with illegal timber transporters after authorities allegedly declined to intervene after being tipped off on Sunday to stockpiles of logs thought to have been felled within a wildlife sanctuary.Ek Sovanna, ...

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.   ...

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. ...