Villagers Accuse Armed Forces of Illegal Logging
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 a complaint scheduled to be filed at the Ministry of Agriculture today, said Sa Thlai, head of the Oddar Meanchey community forestry network. “In the Romdul Veasna forestry community, the soldiers have created anarchy—cutting down trees using chainsaws. A lready, 60 percent of the forest there has been destroyed by illegal cutting and logging,” said Mr. Thlai. …
