Forest products

Banteay Ampil district, Oddar Meanchey province – The families of Beng commune have new neighbors: a battalion of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers building a military base inside one of 13 pockets across the province aiming to be the first forest-based carbon trading scheme ...

In the first six months of the year, 26 Cambodians have been shot dead by the Thai military while illegally logging along the border, nearly double the number killed in all of 2011. “According to the Cambodian-Thai Relations Bureau documents for the semester, there were 26 ...

About 2,000 kilograms of Kran-houng luxury timber worth tens of thousands of dollars and a Toyota Camry car were seized by authorities in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district on Wednesday, military police said yesterday. ...

In February, Son Chhay wrote to the premier urging him to investigate illegal logging outside the legal clearing area slated for the Stung Tatai dam reservoir in Koh Kong province and the environmental destruction that would be wrought by the Stung Cheay Areng dam.  In a ...

At one time, palm oil production stirred a lot of excitement in Cambodia. Perhaps hoping to follow in the footsteps of palm oil giants Malaysia or Indonesia, more than 10 firms in Cambodia registered for land concessions for palm cultivation around a decade ago. Today, there is one left. The others decided palm ...

Cambodia’s government has ignored a suspension on new land concessions to private companies, announcements in an official publication showed, despite ordering a freeze after growing discontent over forced evictions and illegal logging. Prime Minister Hun Sen signed off on 12 sub-decrees on June 7 and 12 ...

Forestry Administration officials have confiscated 15 cubic meters of luxury-grade wood from a truck belonging to hotel and casino magnate Try Pheap in Kompong Thom province. Soth Mary, a division director for the Forestry Administration in the province, said yesterday that his staff stopped a truck ...

Another witness to the fatal shootings of environmental activist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana was questioned at Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday. Bou Orn is the third employee of logging company Timbergreen – a firm Chut Wutty was investigating for alleged illegal logging ...

A military police commander has filed a complaint against a Forestry Administration chief whom he accuses of wrongly sending authorities to search a truck suspected of transporting illegally logged luxury wood, officials said yesterday. When Forestry Administration officials searched the truck at a military police base in Kompong Thom province on ...

The U.N. has said it is concerned about deforestation in Oddar Meanchey province in an area where it has launched a carbon trading scheme and confirmed that it is working with the government in order to “rectify the situation.” In an email on Friday, the ...

The Kratie Provincial Court yesterday issued a search warrant for the home of Chum Vuthy, a man who allegedly trades in luxury wood, in Kratie City, provincial police said. Mr. Vuthy had been transporting a load of illegal lumber from Stung Treng City to Vietnam and ...

Forestry officials on Monday confiscated nearly two-and-a-half cubic meters of luxury grade Thnong wood in Stung Treng province from a military truck emblazoned with the insignia of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Bodyguard Unit, forestry officials said yesterday. An additional 100 pieces of luxury grade wood were ...

Members of the Prey Long Forest Network yesterday said they are planning to hold a citizens’ patrol to look for evidence of illegal logging in Kompong Thom province this weekend. The patrol would be the first such patrol in the country since the April 26 murder ...

The Oddar Meanchey Provincial Court on Saturday charged a 31-year-old soldier for helping villagers who were shot dead after crossing the Thai border while logging for luxury timber, officials and a rights worker said yesterday. Mao Chenda, 20, and Ung Theara, 17, villagers from Anlong Veng ...

A former RCAF soldier accused of leading a group of Cambodians across the Thai border to log luxury wood – an incident that left two dead – is awaiting trial in Oddar Meanchey province, officials said yesterday. Ngoun Thyrith, district military police chief for the Anlong ...

Another witness to the fatal shooting of prominent environmentalist Chut Wutty and military police officer In Rattana has said he did not see who shot the men after testifying in Koh Kong provincial court yesterday. Puom Ravin, a 37-year-old employee of the logging firm Timbergreen said ...

KOH KONG, Cambodia – Frustrated by government inaction, Cambodian citizen patrollers are risking their lives to take on the country’s illegal loggers in a bid to save their shrinking forests. The shooting of a prominent environmentalist by a military policeman last month after he refused to ...

Anti-logging activists have accused authorities of attempting to collect the names of roughly 400 people who attended a memorial service in Koh Kong province last week for the outspoken environmental campaigner Chut Wutty, who was shot dead last month. Although the memorial service at the spot ...

More than two weeks after the murder of conservationist Chut Wutty in the forests of the Cardamom Mountains, the future of his small NGO remains in doubt. But NGOs and communities who worked with Chut Wutty over the years say the larger fate of his ...

CEDAC, a domestic agriculture development organisation and the Kingdom’s largest distributor of natural honey, will shrink its purchases of the commodity in the face of rising prices, the company’s president says. Yang Saing Koma said the group would not reach its goal of buying 7,000 ...

Community activists and conservationists commemorating slain environment activist Chut Wutty on the weekend used the occasion to shed light on what they allege are the shadowy practices of a logging company in the southwestern Cardamom forests. Activists amongst the hundreds of people who travelled to Koh ...

Mondol Seima district, Koh Kong province – It was a gesture the late conservationist and outspoken anti-logging activist would have appreciated. After blessing the site where Chut Wutty was shot dead just over two weeks ago under still mysterious circumstances in this remote patch of the ...

More than 600 people, including 50 Buddhist monks, who have been affected by illegal logging across the country arrived in Koh Kong province yesterday ahead of a memorial service to be held today at the site where well-known forestry activist Chut Wutty was shot dead ...

Hundreds of would-be illegal loggers have been stopped this year by provincial authorities in Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey and Banteay Meanchey who have stopped them from crossing the border into Thailand, where Thai soldiers have killed 17 Cambodians so far this year. In Preah Vihear alone, ...