Newly declared protected areas in Prey Lang forest are being illegally logged by companies belonging to a three-star general and his sister, according to Goldman Environmental Prize-winning conservationist Ouch Leng and NGOs with which he is working.
Leng, along with 15 NGO officers, patrollers and environmental activists, allege the forest in Preah Vihear’s Rovieng district is being logged daily by two companies and hauled to a timber processing facility, known as Factory 95.
The investigation commission for hydropower projects on the Ayeyawady River is discussing the possibility of making a field visit to Kachin State on September 15, according to sources in Myitkyina.
“The commission has been discussing whether it would go to Kachin State. It may be on September 15, but it has not informed us of its plan or how many officials will make the trip,” said an unnamed official within the Kachin State government.
Billed as a Cambodian first, the invitation of 500 civil society and community representatives to a forum on environmental issues with Prime Minister Hun Sen proved largely a platform for the premier to hold forth on policy and politics, with many observers bemoaning the sidelining of community voices.
“We consider this an enlarged cabinet meeting and decisions taken today have the effect of cabinet decisions . . . otherwise the value of today is just sweet talk,” Hun Sen said near the start of a five-hour soliloquy on environmental policy that left little room for contributions from the audience.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday presided over the first of what he promised would be an annual public forum to discuss the plight of the country’s natural resources, though some participants left doubting the events would do much good.
The Forum on the Protection and Conservation of Natural Resources, held at the prime minister’s office building, was a rare chance for activists to put their concerns and requests straight to the premier. The government sought to convince them that it’s getting serious about preserving the country’s lakes, rivers and forests, which have been plundered for decades, often with the help of officials.
Between 2009 and 2012, the Ministry of Environment went on nationwide leasing spree, signing over vast swaths of the country’s nominally protected areas to private companies for rubber plantations and other agribusiness ventures.
In the name of jobs and development, the companies have cleared tens of thousands of hectares of forest in and around their economic land concessions (ELCs), giving Cambodia one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. As a show of his efforts to rein in the more wayward ELCs, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in February that the government had taken back nearly 1 million hectares, a little less than half of the area leased out nationwide.
The new Lao government has issued a moratorium on the export of logs and timber in a bid to reduce rampant and widespread illegal wood shipments outside the small Southeast Asian nation’s borders, according to a copy of the document obtained by RFA’s Lao Service.
Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, who assumed office on April 20, issued the moratorium on May 13. It requires all ministries, provincial governors and mayors to implement strict measures to control and inspect the felling of trees, log transportation, and logging businesses.
The moratorium contains 17 points, including one that forbids the export of logs, timber, processed wood, roots, branches, and trees from natural forests as well as logs the previous government had recently approved for export.
In what he characterized as a shakeup aimed at curtailing the autocratic whims of the forestry and fisheries administrations, Prime Minister Hun Sen announced on Thursday that he was placing both bodies under the authority of provincial governments.
The premier delivered a speech canvassing a wide range of environmental issues in which he also said those holding remaining forest concessions—which date back to the 1990s and were placed under moratorium in 2001—must hand them back or have them forcibly reclaimed by the state.
The Cambodian government has stopped the public screening of a documentary about the life and struggle of Chut Wutty, an environmentalist who was killed in 2012 while exposing the activities of an illegal logging plantation.
The Environment Minister said he would draw up a proposal to protect the remainder of Prey Lang’s roughly 300,000 hectares after flying over the area with the US Ambassador, NGOs and development partners yesterday.
Minister Say Sam Al said the announcement was a turning point for the government, calling on all development partners to cooperate with each other in order to reach an agreement.
“The size of the last forest was more than 300,000 hectares. Now it’s a good sign for us to make an agreement to make Prey Lang a protected area at once. It’s not an easy issue, it’s a difficult issue,” he said.
The minister added that he has been studying Prey Lang with local authorities and will organize a workshop in the next few days to discuss the proposal before sending a sub-decree to the Council of Ministers for approval. “What we did with the ambassador was preparing Prey Lang as a protected area.
Activist Ouch Leng has received international recognition for his work documenting illegal logging and land abuses in Cambodia over the past two decades.
The Goldman Environmental Foundation on Monday announced that Ouch Leng was among six grassroots campaigners from around the world to be awarded the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize, which recognizes their efforts to protect the environment and means more financial support for their causes.
“It’s an honor for Cambodia and its people,” Ouch Leng told VOA Khmer after hearing about his award.
He dedicated the award to his countrymen who are fighting to preserve Cambodia’s remaining forests in the face of rampant illegal logging and damaging government policies.
