Logging’s roots deep
Hun Sen’s Cambodia has been shaped by the collection of illegal timber dollars, profiting a politically connected elite and in turn ensuring the ruling party’s grip on the state apparatus, a leading Australian researcher has said. Sarah Milne, a research fellow at the Australian National University, in a study published last month in the journal Critical Asian Studies, said the Cambodian “regime” has created a “timber shadow economy” by embracing foreign investment, which is “carefully controlled and maximised by the state … in collaboration with powerful elites”. … Last year, the Post revealed how logging tycoon Try Pheap had allegedly made upwards of $310 million from illegally felling Siamese rosewood in the Cardamom Mountains and the Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary between 2009 and 2014. …
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/loggings-roots-deep
