‘They never intended to conserve it’: Outcry as loggers gut Cambodian reserve
by Andrew Nachemson on 13 May 2020


In late February, conservationist Kheng Khou tried to enter Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, which he routinely patrols with other members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN). Instead, he and his colleagues were denied access and threatened with arrest.

Local authorities told them they couldn’t enter because they didn’t have permission from the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, but Khou suspects another reason.

“If the PLCN goes there, we’ll collect and publish evidence and then the world would know about the deforestation and destruction happening even in the protected area,” he said.

Prey Lang, which stretches across five provinces in northern Cambodia, is one of the region’s last remaining large areas of old growth rainforest. In recent years, the area has come under renewed threat from politically connected timber companies. And while the companies themselves are relatively new, some of the individuals behind them have been plundering Cambodia’s forests for decades.

The same week that Khou and others were denied access to Prey Lang, deforestation in the area spiked.

Ida Theilade, a professor at the University of Copenhagen, grew concerned by heightened deforestation activity detected by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab at the University of Maryland in the U.S., which uses satellites to identify areas of tree cover loss larger than 30 square meters. In response, she sent an open letter to Prey Lang stakeholders on April 11.

“There [have] been approximately one thousand GLAD forest loss alerts for Prey Lang per week since the beginning of 2020,” Theilade wrote.

Several weeks have shown spikes of forest loss far higher, with nearly 12,000 alerts recorded the week of Feb. 23. However, even that number was dwarfed by the most recent available data, which registered more than 22,000 alerts the week of April 27.
Full article with other photos and maps of the area: https://news.mongabay.com/2020/05/they- ... n-reserve/

Prey Lang has been hammered so hard for so long it is miracle there is still anything left. But there is.
Hail to the Prey Lang Community Network, still fighting with incredible courage despite the beatings, gaolings and other intimidations - including the murder of their leader, Chut Wutty.

Yeah, that community network is working hard, but they're not getting any government support. The government is actually making things hard for them. I doubt there'll be much left in five years. The past two years have been rather devastating to the area.

Cambodia News, Kratie: At least eight people identified by environmental authority as being involved in illegal logging, forest clearing, burning, and clearing Prey Lang wildlife santuary were arrested by environmental officials on 16 May 2020.


On May 18, the Kratie provincial court was continuing to question the eight people after they were arrested by environmental officials while clearing and burning Prey Lang protected land in Sambor district, Kratie.

conservation and cambodia

a contradiction in terms, an oxymoron

Gov’t, USAID Criticized for Inaction Over Severe Forest Loss at Prey Lang Sanctuary
26 June 2020
Sun Narin
VOA Khmer

PHNOM PENH — Researchers at the University of Copenhagen released an open letter Thursday reporting a 73 percent increase in deforestation in 2019 at the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, compared to 2018, while criticizing the government’s ban on certain patrolling operations.

The University of Copenhagen’s open letter used data from the University of Maryland’s Global Forest Change dataset and other data points to show that 7,510 hectares of forestland were lost at the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in 2019, the worst loss since 2016 when the area was designated a protected area.

“We hope that the attached documentation of forest loss will be well received and help the Ministry in Environment and their partners in the protection of the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary for the sake of all Cambodians,” said Ida Theilade, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Food and Resource Economics.

The letter criticizes the government’s actions to prevent the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), which patrols the fast-disappearing evergreen forest, from conducting its work. It also points to the “silent approval” by USAID and implementing partner Tetra Tech, which provides millions of dollars under the “Greening Prey Lang” project, for the intimidation tactics used against the PLCN.

“As scientists, we are concerned that the Ministry of Environment and their partners, USAID and the American company Tetra Tech, has either not detected the forest disturbance or has chosen not to communicate it to the public,” Ida Theilade added in her email to VOA Khmer.

The findings, which also used data from the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, showed that Prey Lang lost “more than one football pitch” of forest cover every hour in 2019, equaling 0.71 hectares of loss an hour.
https://www.voacambodia.com/a/govt-usai ... 78565.html

Campaign to Protect Prey Lang Launched
AKP Phnom Penh, September 23, 2020 --

Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment (MoE) in cooperation with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) officially launched here yesterday a campaign for Prey Lang Forest Protection Social and Behavior Change Communication.

The event was presided over by Secretary of State for Environment H.E. Sao Sopheap and Ms. Veena Reddy, Mission Director of USAID Cambodia.

Speaking on the occasion, H.E. Sao Sopheap said the campaign gears up Cambodia’s efforts in achieving a significant behaviour change and enhancing positive actions toward forest protection and biodiversity conservation in the country.

The campaign responds to the Royal Government’s commitment to sustainably manage forests and biodiversity as stated in the Constitution on environmental protection and natural resource management, the Rectangular Strategy-Phase IV, and the National Strategic Development Plan 2019-2023, he underlined.

H.E. Secretary of State took the opportunity to express his deep appreciation and gratitude to USAID Cambodia and all stakeholders for their commitment and activities in favour of forest protection, biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resource management in Cambodia.

For her part, Ms. Veena Reddy laid stress on USAID’s environmental protection programme in Cambodia in the past decade focusing on two major biodiversity hotspots – Prey Lang and Eastern Plains Landscape. This project aims to promote environmental protection, sustainable use of natural resources and active participation of the Cambodian people in protecting their resources, she added.
- AKP

Peaceful protectors of Cambodia’s Prey Lang forest, threatened by loggers and local authorities, vow to fight on
International award goes to volunteer forest rangers in mainland Southeast Asia’s last lowland rainforest
25 November 2020
Hugh Biggar

For Cambodia’s largest swath of intact rainforest, the most important line of defense against the logging companies and vested political interests that are seeing it deforested is the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), a local activist group of volunteer forest rangers that has been risking their lives to peaceably protect the area from illegal logging and large-scale land-grabbing since 2007.

Death threats from loggers and punishment from local authorities are however now leading the group and its partners to make changes in their efforts, after the country’s Ministry of Environment began outlawing their work earlier this year. The continued level of dedication to conservation recently earned the volunteer organization recognition as the Global Landscapes Forum’s 2020 Landscape Hero.

“The Ministry of Environment has banned [independent forest patrol] in the Prey Lang protected area and tried to [undermine our work] by saying we had a political agenda,” says a PLCN representative who wished to remain anonymous due to fear of reprisal. “Some of our members are facing arrest and have [had to flee] their villages because they tried to shoot pictures of illegal timber transportation. Local authorities are monitoring and following up on all our activities.”

At stake is mainland Southeast Asia’s last major lowland rainforest. Stretching across 5,000 square kilometers just west of the Mekong River, Prey Lang is home to rare biodiversity and endangered wildlife such as the Asian elephant, the giant ibis and the sun bear. Designated a wildlife sanctuary in 2016, the rainforest is also the spiritual and cultural home of many Indigenous communities, including the Kuy who originally gave the area the name Prey Lang, or “our forest.” The forest helps secure food, livelihoods and health for the some 200,000 people living adjacent to its landscape.

Cambodia has some of the world’s highest rates of deforestation. The country has seen roughly a 25 percent decline in its forest cover since 2000 according to Global Forest Watch, and Prey Lang has experienced an 11 percent loss in tree cover over the past two decades with a spike in recent months.

“The illegal logging increased immediately after the PLCN was barred from patrolling Prey Lang and has continued to intensify over the past six months,” says Ida Theilade, a senior researcher at the University of Copenhagen who received an innovation award in 2018 for helping the PLCN develop a mobile phone app to aid their work. “Logging also intensified in the vicinity of a so-called ‘reforestation project,’ Think Biotech, on the eastern border of the sanctuary. This company has illegally logged the resin and intimidated owners to sell their trees using threats and coercion. While COVID has been used as an [official] excuse to keep locals out of the sanctuary, it has not deterred illegal loggers.”
Full article: https://news.globallandscapesforum.org/ ... -fight-on/

Soldiers, amongst the world's most resilient trench war fighters.

Still getting raked by maschinengewehr 08s, dive bombed by Fokkers and with stielhandgranate being lobbed over into their muddy trenches every day non stop without respite.
Still!

Give em all the Victoria Cross

Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN). Instead, he and his colleagues were denied access and threatened with arrest.
It's now certainly a very deadly game for the protesters, it's proved so in past years. When authorities don't give pomition to be there the game is over.
Was talking to a friend who was riding in the Cardamom, he said to me of you want to see this go soon, or you will miss it, because there cutting all the trees down


Also ever wondered about people who had committed a crime of taking timbers from protected areas, here is what happened to their cars and bikes when taken from there.