News

Members of a conservation group in Kampong Thom province stopped a van carrying illegal timber on Sunday night only to be threatened by a man claiming to be the nephew of a powerful National Assembly parliamentarian. The van was driving with no licence plate and was ...

Prey Lang is one of Cambodia’s few remaining large forests, covering approximately 3,600 square kilometers across four northern provinces. The forest is home to about 200,000 mostly indigenous people, who depend on it for their livelihoods, according to the Prey Lang Community Network. But, the ...

A forest activist in Kampong Thom province yesterday claimed to have been threatened with a knife by a soldier after reporting that the officer was behind a number of forest crimes in the area. Pen Bunkear, a soldier with the Kampong Thom military research unit, yesterday ...

For the second time in as many weeks, an NGO has accused tycoon Try Pheap of facilitating illegal logging in a protected forest during the election campaign and post-election period, and with the protection of authorities. In a report set to be released today by the ...

Two firms holding concessions in rapidly disappearing northern forests are amassing stockpiles of tens of thousands of luxury logs cut both within and outside their leases and trucking them on to Vietnam, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights has alleged. CCHR investigators that tracked logging operations ...

Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday. The move comes after a number of ...

Activists are welcoming Prime Minister Hun Sen’s public vow to prevent logging and rosewood trafficking, but they also say it’s too little too late to have any serious impact on protecting Cambodia’s already decimated forests. In a speech on Friday at the Ministry of Interior, Hun ...

More than 300 activists from Kampong Thom province’s Prey Lang Community Network were stopped by district police yesterday as they were marching from the Vietnamese-owned CRCK Company to deliver a lawsuit in Sandan district calling for the postponement of alleged forest clearing and the “invasion” ...

The Prey Lang Community Network yesterday delivered a letter to authorities in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district calling for the postponement of a Vietnamese concessionaire’s forest clearing and notifying authorities of their intention to deliver a lawsuit to the provincial hall tomorrow, network activists said. According ...

Members of the Prey Lang Community Network yesterday called on the government to approve a forest preservation sub-decree that has been in draft form since 2011. Hoeun Sopheap, representative of the Kampong Thom provincial Prey Lang community, said the sub-decree would help protect the biodiversity of ...

Villagers in the Prey Lang forest in Kompong Thom province have filed the complaint with the provincial court and the Forestry Administration accusing a commune police chief of involvement in logging high-grade timber, officials and villagers said yesterday. The complaint, thumbprinted by 210 people, alleges that ...

Cambodia annulled licenses to four private firms whose concession of 40,000 hectares threatens Prey Lang, one of the richest national forests. A letter from the Council of Ministers to the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Mining, in charge of managing the forests and the natural resources, ...

Nearly 100 Prey Lang villagers in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district will today embark on a three-day “forest watch” mission to monitor what community representatives say are increased illegal logging activities in the jungle. This is the fourth time the community has conducted monitoring in the ...

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 ...

Deep in Koh Kong’s forested district on Thursday, Chut Wutty, 46, the founder of the Natural Resource Protection Group, and In Rattana, 32, a military police officer, were shot dead. Chut Wutty, a forestry activist who has dedicated himself to preserving Cambodia’s disappearing forests since ...

The military police officer who killed well-known anti-logging campaigner Chut Wutty, 46, on Thursday in Koh Kong province then died by his own hand after turning his AK-47 assault rifle on himself in an apparent act of instant suicide following the slaying of the forestry ...

Kampong Thom province About 500 frustrated villagers, citing the authorities’ inaction as their motivation, rode some 250 motorbikes into Prey Lang forest over the weekend in yet another effort to combat illegal logging they say is decimating the area. The villagers from four provinces surrounding Prey Lang ...

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 ...