Forests and forestry

Kampong Speu provincial anti-economic crime police and Thporng district police yesterday morning seized six tractor loads of timber being smuggled out of the Phnom Oral Sanctuary. Kim Yon, deputy district police chief, said six homemade tractors were caught transporting the wood from the area. ...

The value of logs and sawn wood exported from Cambodia to Vietnam last year increased by about $31.5 million compared to 2016, customs data has shown. The Vietnamese data, obtained by Khmer Times yesterday, said about 163,071 cubic metres of Cambodian logs were imported to the ...

Human rights representatives from NGO Adhoc and the United Nations have been asked to intervene in a land dispute between villagers and an army lieutenant they say was granted a land title illegally inside a protected community forest in Oddar Meanchey province. ...

Kampong Thom provincial police raided a wood workshop hidden in the forest in Sandan district on Sunday morning. District police chief Oung Maly said the workshop was built illegally and had no licence for operation. ...

A 55-year-old Vietnamese man was charged by Kampong Thom Provincial Court yesterday for illegally clearing more than six hectares of land in a protected forest. Provincial military police officer Keo Savoeun identified the suspect as Nguyen Duc Nhan, an excavator driver for a Vietnamese rubber plantation ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary seized a stockpile of first- and second-grade luxury timber on Saturday, while a truck hauling wood was intercepted by authorities in Kratie province in the early hours of yesterday morning. No arrests have been made in either case, authorities ...

Five more suspects have been arrested and are being interrogated by authorities in relation to the murder of three forest patrollers last Tuesday in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, authorities confirmed yesterday. ...

Police in Mondulkiri province yesterday arrested a military officer who is a suspect in a shooting that killed three people during an operation to crack down on illegal logging. ...

Police in Mondulkiri province have arrested a military official who is a suspect in a shootout which killed three people during an operation to crack down on illegal logging. ...

As authorities yesterday searched for officials suspected of killing three forestry patrollers in a brazen ambush near Mondulkiri’s border with Vietnam, families, friends and colleagues struggled to make sense of the sudden deaths of their loved ones. ...

A Royal Cambodian Armed Forces member, backed up by seven of his fellow soldiers, allegedly attacked a community forest patroller and threatened to set him and his family on fire for confiscating illegal timber, according to the patroller. ...

An Environment Ministry ranger, a Military Police officer and an employee of a conservation organisation have been killed in a shootout with other Cambodian authorities near Mondulkiri’s border with Vietnam. ...

Tbong Khmum province police on Sunday arrested a man carrying both journalist and military credentials for allegedly illegally transporting rosewood, police said. ...

Three nests belonging to critically endangered red-headed vultures are being guarded day and night to ensure their survival after they were discovered earlier this month at Preah Vihear’s Chheb Wildlife Sanctuary, according to a spokesman with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Spokesman Eng Mengey said ...

These illicit networks have had devastating ramifications in Cambodia, where rural poor and indigenous communities have relied on forested areas as a vital source of income for thousands of years. With one of the highest rates of tree cover loss in the world, the country saw nearly 2 million hectares, ...

The Preah Vihear Provincial Court has sent a man suspected of illegal logging in the Preah Vihear temple forestry conservation area to pre-trial detention, according to the provincial Environment Department. ...

There were 1,428 forestry and wildlife crimes in 2017, with 778 cases ending up in court and the remaining 650 cases leading to administrative fines. According to the annual report from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the cases included illegal logging, the cutting of ...

Tbong Khmum provincial officials have announced a crackdown on illegal checkpoints along the Vietnamese border, possibly in response to a purported warning issued by Prime Minister Hun Sen to provincial Governor Ly Leng to monitor the transport of timber in the province. Local media reports contend ...

Community patrols in Mondulkiri province confiscated more than 500 snares and 80 chainsaws last year while arresting seven people and warning 57 others over illegal activities. According to a Wildlife Conservation Society statement issued yesterday, the patrols were led by Environment Ministry officials and members of ...

Nearly seven months after a gas tanker truck was involved in a deadly crash in Banteay Meanchey province, authorities finally searched it on Saturday, finding it loaded with rosewood. ...

The forestry administration in cooperation with Stung Treng Provincial Court raided a house on Wednesday, yielding hundreds of pieces of illegal timber. Provincial court spokesman Chhum Seanghak confirmed the raid, but said no arrests were made. He declined further comment, referring questions to deputy prosecutor Kim ...

Rampant deforestation and development have increased pressure on animals throughout Cambodia. They’ve especially intensified in the country’s “spirit forests,” as the hill communities like the ethnic-minority Chong call them, which are some of the creatures’ last refuges. But the changes also threaten their culture, as ...

A military lieutenant who sued 13 families in Oddar Meanchey’s Anlong Veng district for allegedly grabbing his land is now demanding $20,000 in compensation, though villagers deny the accusation and it remains unclear as to how the official initially came to own the ostensibly protected ...

Takeo province Military Police on Tuesday confiscated more than a tonne of rosewood that was stored at an abandoned house belonging to a Koh Andet district police official, authorities said today. ...