Prey Long Meeting Gets Grudging Go-Ahead

Commune and village officials in Kratie province yesterday threatened to shut down a community meeting on the protection of Prey Long forest because the organizers had failed to get permission and allegedly invited only opposition party activists. The authorities eventually allowed the meeting to proceed, after insisting that villagers could only continue in the presence of local officials. At issue is a draft sublease proposes to turn some 480,000 hectares of Prey Long forest – about three quarters of the forest’s entire area- into a protected area spanning a total 650,000 hectares across four provinces east of the Tonle Sap, Prey Long is one of the country’s largest remaining primary forests and a source of income for tens of thousands of local villagers. The Prey Long People’s Network, an association of community groups from across the forest, hope the plan will help save the forest from illegal logging and industrial-scale farms. But they see loopholes in the plan that could undermine those hopes. Members of the network had come to Achen village in Sambor district’s Kompong Cham commune,to tell locals about their plan and get their input. …