News

The Forestry Administration’s proposal to create a conservation zone for Prey Long, one of Cambodia’s largest remaining primary forests, has been scaled down by more than 20 percent and now covers about 480,000 hectares, an official said. During consultation workshops in Phnom Penh last month, the ...

A man fled his home in Kratie province’s Snuol district after three men threatened to kill him for confiscating their chainsaws during a patrol against illegal logging, he told the Post yesterday. Village representative Chea Horn said he was scared to return home after the men ...

A combined task force of Thai soldiers and national park officials yesterday arrested 38 Cambodian villagers who encroached on the Panom Dong Rak Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand’s Si Sa Ket province, which borders Oddar Meanchey province. Thai National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department chief Damrong ...

Tired of the rampant destruction of their forests by loggers, villagers in Kratie province on Tuesday took matters into their own hands by briefly detaining loggers and confiscating six chainsaws and a tractor, a forestry official and villagers said yesterday. San Sihan, one of the ...

Villagers in Kompong Thom province’s Sandan district said yesterday that they handed over 77 pieces of luxury wood, which they had seized from illegal loggers, to the Forestry Administration after they were threatened with arrest. Fed up with the perceived lack of government action against illegal ...

Authorities in Preah Vihear province on Monday confiscated one ton of illegally logged rosewood from a Land Cruiser that had crashed after careening out of control on a sharp bend, environment officials said yesterday. The vehicle was found in the early hours of Monday, overturned on ...

Faced with continued illegal logging in Prey Long forest, villagers in Kompong Thom province’s Sandan district once again took the initiative to seize a large haul of illegal timber from local loggers. Villagers, however, said that local officials are complicit in the logging ring and ...

Spurred on by a rash of recent news about illegal logging activities around the country, and concerns about its public image, a government-led group on forestry issued a rare public statement yesterday urging its partners to help crack down on the illicit trade. In a statement ...

The Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) has launched an investigation into an October 2010 incident in which three RCAF soldiers allegedly opened fire on Forestry Administration officials who had just confiscated a haul of illegal wood, one of the officials involved said yesterday. An RCAF official, meanwhile, said ...

TWO activists involved in last month’s Prey Lang forest protest against illegal logging fled their houses yesterday in Sandan district in an attempt to evade local authorities, villagers reported. Roeun Sopheap, village representative in Sandan commune, said he fled his home yesterday after finding several police ...

Cambodia’s National Youth Congress called on the government yesterday to act to protect the country’s natural resources from illegal traders. About 100 young people from 30 colleges in Phnom Penh, Kratie and Kampong Thom Chhnang provinces attended a discussion about protecting natural resources – with a ...

Illegal logging of staggering proportions abetted by military personnel is decimating stocks of luxury rosewood in the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, while the conversation group tasked with protecting the area and its government counterparts deny the trade is even happening. In a period of several hours ...

Twenty-eight Cambodians were arrested Thursday by Lao soldiers after crossing the border while logging rosewood, officials said yesterday. The Stung Treng provincial RCAF commander, Brigadier General Svay Ngorn, said yesterday that Stung Treng authorities were negotiating the men’s release with their Lao counterparts ...

The Ratanakiri provincial forestry department over the past week in Andong Meas district confiscated more than 600 pieces of the luxury rosewood species of timber, a forestry official said. Vong Sok Serie, Ratanakiri provincial administration chief, said his officers collected a total of 610 pieces of ...

Thailand has repatriated the body of an Oddar Meanchey man fatally shot Tuesday while illegally logging for rosewood in Thailand, border officials said yesterday. Torn Kimsann, 22, was among a group of four men from Samraong City’s O’Smach commune who had ventured about 1km into Thailand ...

Six Oddar Meanchey villagers were arrested Monday afternoon while attempting to cross into Thailand to illegally log rosewood in the same area where three loggers were shot and killed by Thai authorities last week, officials said yesterday In a separate case, two loggers were reported missing ...

Police and military officials were searching for six missing Cambodians yesterday who villagers believe were shot dead by Thai soldiers on Saturday night after entering the Khun Han district of Thailand’s Si Saket province in search of luxury timber. Neth Hing, who lives in Oddar Meanchey’s ...

Cambodia has one of the world’s highest rates of deforestation, ranking ninth among 180 countries in terms of forest loss during the past decade, according to a new study, which said that economic land concessions and illegal logging were the primary cause for the demise ...

Three Oddar Meanchey province villagers were shot to death on Monday while logging on the Thai-Cambodian border, officials said yesterday, bringing the total number of border killings so far this year to 14 and drawing concern from human rights groups over the continuing bloodshed around ...

Forestry Administration officials yesterday said they confiscated 1.34 cubic meters of smuggled rosewood from RCAF soldiers even after a lieutenant colonel held a pistol to one of their heads in the hope of scaring them off. Tea Kimsoth, head of the administration’s Siem Reap cantonment, said ...

Kompong Thom provincial officials denied a media report yesterday that authorities had filed a legal complaint against two villagers and two human rights workers who campaigned in the province last week to demand protection for Prey Long forest ...

A pair of Sandan district villagers who participated in last week’s Prey Lang forest protest against illegal logging, and two of the NGO workers who monitored them, were facing accusations of incitement and destruction of property in complaints filed against them in the provincial court, ...

Two men were arrested Monday in Kompong Thom province for illegally transporting nearly half a cubic meter of valuable rosewood, said a forestry official ...

Adding to a spate of similar incidents since October, Thai soldiers fired on a group of Cambodians who had illegally entered Thailand from Oddar Meanchey province on Saturday looking to log valuable rosewood trees and shot one in the hand, a provincial official said yesterday ...