Forests and forestry

The latest crackdown on illegal logging in Cambodia is “just a game” and big timber traders are winning, says Ouch Leng, a former government official who has spent two decades helping poor villagers fight poaching of precious tropical forests. Leng’s tenacious and perilous crusade to stop ...

About 130 hectares of protected wetlands in three villages in Kampong Chhnang province’s Boribor district were consumed in forest fires last week, according to a police report issued by the Interior Ministry. ...

A leading Indian conservationist and tiger expert is warning that a multimillion-dollar scheme to reintroduce the big cat to Cambodia will be a “tragic failure” that could cost lives, and that its advocates will come to rue the attempt.    ...

Houses will be built for school teachers from illegally-felled timber seized by authorities, the Ministry of Education has announced, but before work can start on the new structures officials from the ministry have been asked to gather information on which schools need the houses the ...

A controversial proposed animal swap that would have seen elephants Kiri and Seila sent from the notorious Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot to a zoo in Japan in exchange for other exotic species has been officially called off, new documents show.   ...

Eight tigers will be released into the Cambodian wild in an unprecedented plan projected to cost between $20 and $50 million, the Ministry of Agriculture and WWF-Cambodia announced at an event in Phnom Penh on Wednesday.   ...

Sleeping in a hammock strung between two tall trees, deep inside Prey Lang forest, environmental activist Phorn Sopheak was startled awake at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when her parked motorbike toppled over onto her body. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has agreed to legally protect nearly 1 million hectares of the Kingdom’s forest land, including the Prey Lang forest. Speaking during the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport’s annual meeting at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Mr. Hun Sen said he ...

The Ministry of Environment has proposed the government establish nearly one million hectares of newly protected forest, an area that will include the Prey Lang forest, according to ministry spokesman Sao Sopheap.​ ...

Police in Tbong Khmum province found more than 4,000 pieces of undocumented rosewood after raiding the home of a commune chief over the weekend but chose not to arrest the official pending further investigation.​ ...

A member of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) in Kratie province was seriously injured after she was attacked by an unknown assailant while sleeping in a hammock on Sunday night near Boeung Cha village. ...

A group of 10 armed soldiers stormed a Forestry Administration office in Oddar Meanchey province on Monday and attempted to seize a military truck that had been confiscated from them after they used it to transport illegal timber, leading to an hourslong standoff, officials said.​ ...

The Ministry of Environment is encouraging people living in or around protected areas to start feeding and domesticating wild animals, and to abstain from eating them, with similar strategies in animal conservation being attempted in communities in Preah Vihear province. ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province have found more piles of possibly illegally logged wood as part of the government’s ongoing sweep of eastern Cambodia for illicit timber stocks, this time on a rubber plantation owned by wealthy businessman Soung Vang. ...

A high-speed police chase across Stung Treng province early Monday morning led to the confiscation of more than 1.5 tons of rosewood, but only after an SUV plowed into a police truck blocking the road, with two suspects eventually fleeing on foot. ...

The National Anti-Deforestation Committee (NADC) filed complaints to provincial courts against five companies that obtained economic land concessions (ELCs) from the government after discovering irregularities in the companies’ timber stocks after a three-day inspection early this week. ...

A police official in Kompong Thom province has so far avoided prosecution in a weekend timber smuggling case involving his brother, three unidentified loggers and three carloads of rosewood logs marked with his name. ...

Although they remain publicly unnamed, nine businessmen in the timber industry were summoned to appear at the Tbong Khmum provincial court today for alleged deforestation crimes and illegal business dealings, according to officials. ...

A prominent anti-dam activist in Koh Kong province who has been jailed since October was convicted Thursday of illegal logging and given a suspended prison sentence, allowing him to walk free but leaving the shadow of a criminal conviction hanging over him. ...

City Hall plans to privatize a 280-hectare plot of public land set aside for a $3 billion development by the Over­seas Cambodia Investment Cor­poration (OCIC) in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district, officials said Thursday.   ...

The Indigenous Peoples and Forestry Network (IPFN) yesterday released a statement praising the government’s ongoing purported crackdown on illegal logging, but saying far more needs to be done. ...

A blaze authorities have attributed to a forest fire ripped through a nearly 4,000-cubic-metre timber stockpile on a social land concession in Preah Vihear’s Kulen district on the weekend, although the company yesterday said it suspected a case of arson. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen unleashed a tirade against underperforming government officials in a pair of speeches yesterday – musing aloud about reshuffling his Council of Ministers and wondering why rockets had not yet been deployed in the Kingdom’s recent “crackdown” on illegal logging. ...

More than a month has passed since National Anti-Deforestation Committee (NADC) named the people it suspects of profiting from the trade in illegal timber, but not a single arrest warrant or court summons has been issued since. As perpetrators continue to go unpunished, the illegal ...