The Cambodian Youth Network sound the alarm: the illegal logging in the protected area of Prey Lang forest is continuing unabated, ignored by the local authorities.
Illegal logging persists in Cambodia’s Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary: Report
by Shreya Dasgupta on 20 November 2019
Cambodia’s Prey Lang forest was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 2016, but illegal land clearing within the protected area continues, a new report has found.

Members of the Cambodian Youth Network (CYN), who recently patrolled 1,761 hectares (4,352 acres) of forest in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, found that several hundred hectares of dense, evergreen forest had been cleared, and hundreds of trees had been marked for logging in the near future.
CYN worries that if the clearing continues, the government could grant economic land concessions on those lands in the future.
CYN has called on the Cambodian government to crack down on the illegal encroachment and stop any more forest from being cleared.

Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia continues to be illegally cleared, according to a new report by the Cambodian Youth Network (CYN).

Located in the central plains of Cambodia, Prey Lang forest straddles the four provinces of Kratie, Stung Treng, Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear. In 2016, to halt the rampant illegal logging that had been degrading the forest at an alarming rate, an area of nearly 4,320 square kilometers (1,668 square miles) of the forest was declared a wildlife sanctuary. But despite the protected area status, illegal clearing has continued unabated, local conservation groups have found.

Earlier this year, for example, a report by the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), a group of volunteers from communities living in and around Prey Lang, found that the protected area lost 56 square kilometers (22 square miles) of forest in 2017 alone.

Now, the latest report from CYN has documented further evidence of more recent illegal logging and land encroachment.

Between July and August this year, CYN and PLCN investigated instances of illegal forest clearing in the northern part of the sanctuary. They patrolled 17.61 hectares (17.6 square kilometers, or 6.8 square miles) of the forest in Stung Treng and Preah Vihear provinces, and found that several hundred hectares of dense, evergreen forest had been cleared.

“It wasn’t usually the single trees being cut down but large areas had been cleared,” CYN vice president Sar Mory told Mongabay. “In some areas at least five to six hectares of forest have been cleared, while in others almost 100 hectares [1 square kilometer; 0.4 square miles] have been cleared. But we did find single trees being cut down as well, including trees like rosewood and trees used for construction purposes.”

The patrol teams also found evidence of illegal logging that was to come. Smaller trees and undergrowth had been cleared in some places, which Mory said would make it easier for the loggers to cut bigger trees using chainsaws in the future. Hundreds of single trees had also been marked with red paint, suggesting they had been targeted for felling. Moreover, several trees had been logged in lines, some extending 200 to 500 meters (660 to 1,640 feet). The way in which the trees have been marked and lines cleared indicates that the loggers plan on subdividing the land into lots, Mory added.

CYN suspects that this is being done to make way for agro-industrial farming, to grow crops like cassava and cashew. While the investigation team couldn’t identify the people behind the land encroachment, it was able to identify some middlemen who had hired people from surrounding villages to cut down the trees.

“It’s mostly people from Kampong Cham and Thbong Khmom [also spelled Tbong Khmum] provinces who clear the forest inside the sanctuary — they have money and they hire people who are poor to clear the forest land for them,” Mory said.
Full article: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/11/illeg ... ry-report/

Officials Block Prey Lang Activists From Forest Ahead of Annual Event
Danielle Keeton-Olsen and Hun Sirivadh
Fri Feb 21, 2020 9:07 pm

The Environment Ministry and local authorities on Friday prevented hundreds of environmental rights advocates and others from entering the Prey Lang protected area for an annual forest conservation event set for the weekend, a ministry spokesman and rights group said.

Spokesman Neth Pheaktra told VOD that the ministry had banned the forest blessing ceremony hosted by conservation and forest patrol group Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) because the organization is not registered with the Interior Ministry.

“Very unfortunately, they are not a registered entity, [and] entered the protected area illegally and without permission to supposedly play the police,” Pheaktra said in a message.

He cited Article 11 of the Protected Areas Law to justify the officials’ actions, claiming that the group had entered a “core zone” of a protected area.

The law says access to core zones, defined as areas containing threatened and critically endangered species, is limited to nature conservation officials and scientific researchers, and requires permission from the Environment Ministry.

Human rights group Licadho said in a statement that hundreds of community members, monks and activists had been told not to enter the wildlife sanctuary by local and Environment Ministry officials, some of whom were armed.

Authorities told participants they would need “official permission letters” from “higher level” officials in order to hold the event, the statement said.

Designated a wildlife sanctuary in 2016, Prey Lang spans about 430,000 hectares across Kratie, Stung Treng, Kampong Thom and Preah Vihear provinces. It has lost nearly 42,000 hectares — or about 10 percent — of its forest cover between 2001 and 2018, according to Global Forest Watch satellite data.

In an update of their monitoring activities from last month, PLCN reported an average of 89 illegal activities per month between June 2018 and last June, which include sightings of logging, tree stumps and timber transport vehicles within sanctuary boundaries.

During PLCN’s annual forest protection event, activists and residents meet in provincial towns, and then gather inside the sanctuary for a Buddhist blessing ceremony to promote conservation and raise awareness about illegal logging.

PLCN coordinators told VOD on Friday that they were meeting with local officials to assess whether they can still hold the ceremony, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday.

Srey Thei, a coordinator for Preah Vihear province, said he had heard rumors that authorities would prevent his province’s activists from going into the forest on Saturday morning. He said he planned to meet with a local police chief to discuss gaining access to the sanctuary, and he still planned to attend the ceremony, as of Friday evening.

Thei said the group’s Kampong Thom representatives had told him they were stopped from entering the forest on Friday.
https://vodenglish.news/officials-block ... ual-event/

Some of the Prey Lang mob down in Koh Kong for a Chut Wutty memorial.
Wonderful people . friendly, bright, quietly articulate, fiercely brave
I think i have posted these before, but what the hell, the story is current again.
These good folk have been battling every day for twenty years, and still smiling..

The Ministry of the Environment says that it is protecting the forest from all activities, including blessing ceremonies.

2 mins ago - BREAKING NEWS
Ministry prohibits group’s events in Prey Lang protected forests

Prey Lang Community Network members in four provinces have been banned from organising blessing ceremonies scheduled to have been performed in protected forests on Saturday and yesterday.

Chheang Ly, a Prey Lang Community Network representative in Stung Treng province, said yesterday about 600 people, including villagers, monks and civil society organisations representatives had gathered to perform the ceremonies in her province and Kampong Thom, Preah Vihear, and Kratie provinces but were barred by park rangers and local authorities who asked them to prove they had permission.

“They [the rangers and authorities] accused us of trying to conduct the ceremony in the Prey Lang Wildlife Santuary without a permit,” she said. “We had submitted a letter to inform the Environment Ministry more than a month before the celebration was due to take place but there was no response. And when it was time for us to hold [the ceremonies], we were obstructed.”

Ek Sovanna, a representative of the Prey Lang Network in Kratie province, considered the disruption from the rangers and authorities as restricting people’s right to hold religious ceremonies.

“Every year, we submit a letter to the ministry requesting to hold the same celebration and it has never objected,” he said. “However, this year our ceremonies have been disrupted.”

“What we are doing is to protect the forests and we do not have any political agenda. Therefore, the ministry should reconsider this case.”

Ministry of Environment spokesman Neth Pheaktra said yesterday said the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary and its wildlife and ecosystem need to be protected and preserved from any activities, including such ceremonies by the network and other groups.
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50694289/m ... ed-forests

Ministry, Forest Patrollers Accuse Each Other of Breaking the Law
6 min read
Saut Sok Prathna
Tue Feb 25, 2020 7:43 pm

The Environment Ministry has accused a forestry patrol group of illegally monitoring a protected forest, drawing criticism from civil society organizations who say the ministry has violated the group’s rights and restricted its conservation efforts.

The Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), an organization of locals who patrol and report on forest crimes in the wildlife sanctuary, canceled their annual conservation event last weekend after several groups attempting to enter the sanctuary, which spans four provinces, were stopped by authorities on Friday.

Environment Ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra told VOD in a message on Monday that the ministry had repeatedly warned PLCN that it needed to be registered with the Interior Ministry in order to enter the forest.

In a statement released Tuesday, more than 100 civil society groups and local communities expressed outrage over PLCN being unable to hold its annual tree-blessing ceremony, and called on the ministry to “stop opposing the activities, rejecting the research and intimidating the members of the PLCN.”

Last week, Pheaktra accused PLCN members of trying to “play the police.”

The spokesman claimed PLCN had entered a “core zone” of a protected area in violation of Article 11 of the Protected Areas Law, which he said justified officials’ blocking of the group from entering the sanctuary.

However, the civil society groups on Tuesday said the Prey Lang protected area had never been zoned after it was designated a wildlife sanctuary in 2016. Pheaktra did not respond to questions about zoning in the sanctuary on Tuesday.

The Protected Areas Law says access to core zones, defined as areas containing threatened and critically endangered species, is limited to nature conservation officials and scientific researchers, and requires permission from the Environment Ministry.

Pheaktra also criticized PLCN’s forest monitoring activities, claiming the group was acting as a “judicial official,” secretly patrolling parts of the sanctuary and using apps to report “exaggerated” data on forestry crimes.

According to a PLCN monitoring report released last month, the group uses a smartphone app*** to document illegal logging activities, as well as culturally-valuable natural resources and climate change impacts like reduced water levels in lakes and streams. The group reported an average of 89 illegal logging activities per month between June 2018 and last June.

The report notes that University of Copenhagen researchers who prepared the document had submitted a draft copy to the Environment Ministry, which responded that it was “not in a position to provide comments to the draft report.”

The Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary occupies more than 430,000 hectares in Kratie, Stung Treng, Preah Vihear and Kampong Thom provinces. It lost nearly 42,000 hectares — or about 10 percent — of its forest cover between 2001 and 2018, according to Global Forest Watch satellite data.
Full article: https://vodenglish.news/ministry-forest ... g-the-law/

***post295877.html?hilit=wildlife%20app%20denmark#p295877

^^^
"The report notes that University of Copenhagen researchers who prepared the document had submitted a draft copy to the Environment Ministry, which responded that it was “not in a position to provide comments to the draft report.”

lol
not in a position to provide informed comment on anything related to the environment.

(nb, this snarkyness is directed to the MoE heads. Not it's staff who are by and large very capable and who know exactly what is going on. They are often the good guys, but the ministry has little influence against the powerful interests it is up against
- including it's own CPP-appointed heads)

Amnesty International Public Statement
20March 2020 ASA 23/2004/2020
CAMBODIA: HARASSMENT OF FOREST DEFENDERS UNDERMINES STRUGGLE AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE

The Cambodian authorities’ harassment and intimidation of environmental human rights defenders amounts to a wholesale assault against grassroots activism and Indigenous peoples’ rights and undercuts the global struggle against climate change, Amnesty International said today aheadof the International Day of Forests 2020.

In recent days and weeks, activists working to expose rampant illegal logging in the Prey Lang rainforest have faced a barrage of attacks, including arbitrary detention and physical assaults, by both state authorities and corporate actors.
PreyLang is one of the most ecologically important rainforests in Southeast Asia and home to Kuy Indigenous communities. Efforts to repress the work of Prey Lang’s defenders cast serious doubt upon the Cambodian authorities’ commitment to achieving its climate change targets and respecting Indigenous peoples’ rights.

On 13 March in Kratie Province, Goldman Environmental Prize winner Ouch Leng was arrested and detained along with Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) members Srey Thei and Khem Soky and forest investigator Man Mat. The four were initially detained, with Man Mat beaten, by staff of an agribusiness company operating in the area while investigating allegations of illegal logging within the Prey Lang forest. Later transferred to police custody at Sambor district police station, they were released without charge on Monday 16 March after days of community protests against the arrests in Kratie town.
They reportedly remain under investigation as suspects for unspecified crimes. Amnesty International is calling for the baseless investigation into the four forest activists to be dropped and for the Cambodian authorities to conduct a thorough and impartial investigation into all credible allegations of arbitrary detention,torture and illegal logging by agribusiness companies operating in the area.
[CEO News: See also newsworthy/korean-company-think-biotech ... 13462.html]

These arrests occurred just weeks after PLCN –a grassroots network of mostly Indigenous forest defenders -was accused of operating illegally and of peddling false information about illegal logging by the Cambodian Ministry of Environment. PLCN has been at the forefront of environmental protection efforts in Cambodia since its formation in 2001. They have bravely defended Prey Lang while many of Cambodia’s forests have been plundered as officials either profited from, or ignored, rampant deforestation.
On 22 February, at various locations around the Prey Lang forest, armed forest rangers deployed by the Ministry of Environment harassed members of PLCN and others seeking to participate in PLCN’s annual tree blessing ceremony.
The event was arbitrarily shut down, and attendees were physically prevented from entering parts of the Prey Lang protected area in violation of their right to freedom of peaceful assembly. PLCN members reported that rangers violently restricted their movements and that at least one member was temporarily detained during the confrontation.

Ministry of Environment officials claimed in social media posts and media comments following the incident that PLCN is operating illegally because it has not registered under Cambodia’s widely criticised Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO). Officials further accused the network of issuing inaccurate reports about deforestation in Prey Lang. The Ministry’s claims that PLCN is operating illegally contradict earlier written assurances fromCambodia’s Ministry of Interior, whichstated that the LANGO does not apply to community-based and grassroots networks.
These threats against PLCN arethe latest example of the weaponization of the LANGO to stifle and repress independent civil society and grassroots activism. This draconian law claims to protect the right to freedom of association, yet the LANGO has overwhelmingly been utilised to restrict and punish the work of independent and outspoken civil society actors.

Amnesty International reiterates its calls to repeal or substantially amend the LANGO without delay to ensure it is brought in line with international human rights law, and to guarantee a safe and enabling environment for environmental human rights defenders to conduct their work without fear of reprisals.
https://www.amnesty.org/download/Docume ... NGLISH.PDF

Preservation fight in Prey Lang forges on
Khorn Savi | Publication date 23 April 2020 | 21:31 ICT

A campaign by environmental and human rights groups calling on the government to shut down sawmills across the country to stop Cambodia’s latest deforestation has reached the second stage.

The campaign is being conducted in three stages. The first stage involved a Facebook campaign from April 1 to 10, calling on people to join in the protection of forests.

The second stage involves travelling by vehicles across the four provinces of Prey Lang from April 22 to 27. The third is a road trip campaign across the country where forest areas are allegedly being destroyed.

President of the Cambodian Youth Network (CYN) Tim Malay told The Post on Thursday that the second stage of the campaign has been organised with many activities besides just the vehicle campaign.

There are also photos posted to raise awareness of deforestation and young people have been invited to speak at the forest protection talks.

“In this campaign, we also want to commemorate Chut Wutty’s death eight years ago and remember his heroism, as well as tell young people to love the forest and natural resources,” Malay said.

***Wutty was a Cambodian environmental activist who was founder and director of the Natural Resource Protection Group.

He said for the third stage, there will be a series of activities focused on telling the truth about deforestation in Cambodia, and groups may submit documents or images to the government institutions on the deforestation of Prey Lang and the smuggling of timber from Cambodia for sale abroad.
Full article: https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... ang-forges

***Previous CEO threads on Chut Wutty:
newsworthy/the-real-cambodian-heroes-t8544.html
newsworthy/years-since-chut-wutty-was-s ... t4702.html

The film "I Am Chut Wutty" April 2016

In related news, a South Korean company, Think Biotech, is accused of clearing forest in land conceded by the Cambodian government in the Prey Lang protected forest zone. They are also accused of assaulting and sequestrating Prey Lang forest defenders.
newsworthy/korean-company-think-biotech ... 13462.html

(Hanwha Think Biotech (Cambodia) Co., Ltd is a forest management company fully licensed and registered with the Cambodian government since September 2011 Incorporation number : Inv. 2145 E/2011.)

University of Copenhagen warns illegal logging in Cambodia
by Sofia Flittner • April 22, 2020 •

Denmark’s University of Copenhagen draws attention to recently published data which shows increased illegal logging within the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia, according to the Cambodian daily the Phnom Penh Post.

In a letter to stakeholders of the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, the Danish University of Copenhagen provides documentation of the deforestation with a tool by the EU that detects processes of forest degradation by the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), the EU Reseach Centre and Global Forest Watch. The University of Copenhagen also documents the deforestation of Prey Lang with the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (Glad) that via satellite pictures of earth detects deforestation.

The letter states that there have been approximately 1.000 Glad alerts – notices for when deforestation is detected – per week in Prey Lang in 2020. The data shows an increase in forest loss in the southern and northern part of Prey Lang, reports Phnom Penh Post.

Concern for illegal logging
The letter penned by the Danish University of Copenhagen shows concern over the cancellation of a Prey Lang Community Network tree blessing ceremony that had been planned for 22-23 February. The cancellation wasn’t decided by the organization itself but by the Cambodian authorites.

“We are concerned that the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) tree blessing ceremony was banned due to government-sanctioned illegal logging of protected resin trees in the area,” says the letter.

[Government reply]
“The Ministry of Environment emphasizes that no perpetrator can escape the law. We recognize that there are small-scale natural resource offences in protected areas, but no large-scale crimes,” said the spokesman of the Cambodian Ministry of Environment to the Phnom Penh Post.
https://scandasia.com/university-of-cop ... -cambodia/