News

Nearly 200 Kuoy villagers protested yesterday at the Forestry Administration Office in Preah Vihear province to demand a Malaysian-owned company return 1,100 hectares of land and a tractor confiscated by officials last month. ...

An inspection of a truck transporting cassava through Siem Reap province’s Kralanh district on Tuesday revealed a massive haul of luxury rosewood. ...

A ban on the importation of chainsaws into Cambodia could be in the offing, after agriculture officials this week called for a nationwide crackdown on the illegal logging trade. ...

Rangers in eastern Cambodia’s Seima Protected Forest have reported seizing 32 animals in three separate busts over the past week, including more than a dozen endangered tortoises. ...

Nearly 20 cubic metres of timber were seized by local authorities in Stung Treng’s Thala Barivat district yesterday, despite alleged interference by a military police officer from Preah Vihear province, police said. ...

After almost five years of alleged illegal logging in Preah Vihear province’s Preah Rokar community forest by a local businessman, more than 100 villagers yesterday petitioned the provincial authorities to shut down his handicrafts company. The villagers say that the woodworking operation, owned by businessman Sar ...

Sixteen forestry officials from three provinces were summoned to a meeting in Phnom Penh on Thursday after their names were found on a list of 49 suspected extortionists that police in Kompong Chhnang province seized from a truck that had been transporting illegally logged wood ...

Newly released maps using U.S. satellite data show that Cambodia continued to suffer major deforestation in 2013, much of it in nominally protected forests and wildlife sanctuaries. In November 2013, the University of Maryland released what it said was the first study to combine a consistent ...

Human rights group Adhoc has demanded the release of a couple and their 9-month-old child jailed amid a land dispute in Preah Vihear, calling their arrest a “grave human rights abuse”. ...

Authorities in Oddar Meanchey province found a haul of valuable luxury wood inside the luggage compartment of a passenger bus on Friday, but let the driver go although he later admitted to smuggling the wood. Chongkal district military police chief Un Kimseng said the Rith Mony ...

Police in Kandal province on Tuesday confiscated a haul of wood, including a few pieces of precious rosewood, that was being unlawfully transported to Phnom Penh by the military for the construction of a Brigade 90 commander’s office. The commander has appealed to Royal Cambodian Armed ...

Police in Stung Treng province confiscated a truckload of illegally logged wood on Sunday and are investigating a Forestry Administration official who tried to take the haul off their hands following the seizure. ...

Forestry Administration officials in Mondulkiri province are on the lookout for illegal loggers, after finding 130 pieces of luxury-grade timber in Koh Nhek district. The find comes on the heels of 3,221 pieces of timber found in Mondulkiri’s Pech Chreada district last month. ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province confiscated more than 100 pieces of illegal luxury-grade wood stockpiled on the bank of the Mekong River Saturday, officials said Sunday. ...

Police and Forestry Administration officials in Banteay Meanchey province confiscated more than 120 pieces of illegally logged luxury-grade wood in two separate operations on Tuesday and Wednesday, officials said Thursday. In one case, authorities on Wednesday found 75 pieces of beng and thnong wood inside a ...

Two large trucks carrying 60 cubic meters of luxury wood were confiscated on Saturday after their drivers unsuccessfully attempted to barge through a roadblock of cars set up by the Forestry Administration in Kompong Cham province, officials said. ...

A provincial military police commander was named yesterday by a major conservationist group as the alleged owner of a huge haul of illegal rosewood confiscated in Kampong Speu province this week. At around 3 a.m. on Tuesday, Wildlife Alliance rangers intercepted a truck carrying 12.5 cubic ...

Authorities in Kratie province on Saturday night discovered nearly 90 pieces of luxury-grade wood stockpiled just outside the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) headquarters in Chhlong district, where they believe the timber was being staged for transport to Tbong Khmum province to the south, officials ...

Tycoon Try Pheap has collected an estimated 1,500 cubic metres of timber from Forestry Administration offices since the government in July issued his companies permission to confiscate “waste wood” from their offices and from the Ministry of Environment, according to preliminary government figures obtained by ...

Sheltering under a blue tarpaulin amid dense woodland in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, Nhean* sits and waits for night to fall after a long day scouring the protected forest for luxury timber. He says he works for a broker who is a supplier to one of Cambodia’s ...

Secret storage depots for illegal timber hidden in the forest in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district were discovered by ethnic minority villagers on Friday, prompting a rights worker to suggest local officials were involved in the illicit trade. ...

The Chinese government has provided forestry equipment in equivalent to 4.1 million yuan (667, 200 U.S. dollars) to Cambodia for protecting and developing forest sector, officials said. ...

Two forestry administration officials who were arrested and detained in Kratie province for extorting money from pepper farmers were transferred to Phnom Penh on Tuesday upon the request of the Anti-Corruption Unit, officials said. ...

Military police in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district on Monday were duped into letting a detained immigration official walk free just hours after he was arrested for alleged involvement in the cross-border illegal timber trade, police said yesterday. District military police chief Sok Min said yesterday that ...