Forest Falls in Ratanakkiri to the Tune of Chainsaws, Trucks
LUMPHAT WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, Ratanakkiri Province – From behind the corrugated metal walls of Daun Penh Agrico’s wood depot, the raspy buzz of a chainsaw rattled through the surrounding forest on Monday afternoon. As the chainsaw revved and cut, a heavy-duty truck packed full of long, sawn logs of high-grade timber rumbled through the depot’s front gate, kicking up a choking cloud of dust that enveloped Keo Souleng’s modest stilt house. Mr. Souleng, a nimble 62-year-old, who has farmed the land around his home for the past 31 years, said he sees at least nine such trucks, loaded with logs, enter the depot each day. ... Manning a shabby wooden guard post just outside the gate of Daun Penh Agrico’s depot, San Sopheap pulled on a tan jacket a size or so too small for his tall frame with a Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary patch stitched to the shoulder. ... Mr. Sopheap said that he worked for the provincial environment department and had been assigned to guard the company’s wood depot by Ou Sothea, the son of the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary’s director, Ou Sothy. ... Daun Penh Agrico has the legal rights to log inside its land concession as a means to clear land for planting rubber and palm oil trees. But Mr. Thaov acknowledged that local villagers are worried about losing their farms to the firm and the surrounding forests they depend on. ... Last month, [Ratanakkiri’s provincial environment department chief] ,Mr. [Chou] Sopheak told The Cambodia Daily that the boundaries of Daun Penh Agrico’s land concession were not fully demarcated, making it impossible to know whether the firm was logging inside or outside the land it had been granted by the government. He conceded that some illegal logging may be taking place in the area. ... Local villagers claimed the logging of their resin trees, and of several other protected species of rare woods, prized for their light-to-deep red grain, was happening well outside the bounds of the concessions. The local commune chief and district governor supported these claims. ... Last month, local staff for rights group Adhoc found boatmen ferrying large logs across the Srepok River similar to those they had recently seen inside Daun Penh’s depot. According to Adhoc, the boatmen claimed that they worked for well-known timber magnate Try Pheap and that the logs were picked up on the opposite bank to be trucked to Vietnam. ... After a lengthy investigation of its own using field visits and satellite images, environmental campaign group Global Witness last month said land concessions belonging to other firms inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary were also illegally logging healthy forest inside and outside the borders of their land. ...
Zsombor Peter and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/forest-falls-in-ratanakkiri-to-the-tune-of-chainsaws-and-trucks-49134/
