Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Another good article from the Khmer Times on illegal logging and environmental destruction in the North-East of Cambodia. The Cambodian Human Rights Task Force have released their report on the destruction of the forest area around the lower Sesan II dam site. It is difficult to get access to the site, so well done to them.

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Sawmill on the banks of the Sesan River.

Ten trucks fully loaded with timber have been spotted entering a heavily guarded sawmill near the Lower Sesan II dam on an hourly basis, claimed a report by the Cambodian Human Rights Task Force (CHRTF), which was released yesterday.

According to the report, photos taken from a drone showed 40 large chainsaws being used to quickly log timber from the surrounding forests, supposedly in the dam’s reservoir zone in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district, while dozens of trucks waited to transport the timber to a nearby sawmill.

“We saw a big sawmill which has logged, transported and supplied timber for five years already. It is located along the Sesan River.

“The working team saw…at least 10 trucks carrying timber into the sawmill per hour,” the CHRTF report said, adding that the sawmill also had armed guards who would not allow anyone to enter, apart from the hundreds of workers carrying timber into the factory.

CHRTF president Ouch Leng claims the logging, responsible for the massive destruction of the forests along the Sesan River, had the support of the governments of Cambodia, Vietnam and China.

“It is big destruction. Cambodia, Vietnam and China decided to destroy the forest and the environment’s protection system just to get profits and become billionaires, all with the full support of the governments from these three countries,” Mr. Leng said.

Construction of the 75-meter-high dam started last year with a total cost estimated at $816 million. China’s Lancang Hydropower International Energy has a 51 percent stake in the project, Cambodia’s Royal Group owns 39 percent and Vietnam’s EVN International owns 10 percent.

Mr. Leng added, however, that the company responsible has been logging there for five years and only cared about making a profit, having earned billions of dollars throughout the duration of their operation...
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/31962/ ... d--report/
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

Post by boozyoldman »

Is the opposition making a fuss about this?

CHRTF president Ouch Leng claims the logging, responsible for the massive destruction of the forests along the Sesan River, had the support of the governments of Cambodia, Vietnam and China.

“It is big destruction. Cambodia, Vietnam and China decided to destroy the forest and the environment’s protection system just to get profits and become billionaires, all with the full support of the governments from these three countries,” Mr. Leng said.


Is anyone making a fuss?
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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Forbidding drone use above Angkor temples only was clearly inadequate. The government should act quickly on this regard to protect wild life and gatherers from these dangerous flying objects.
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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For those who don't know who Kith Meng is, he is head of the Royal Group (big business tycoon), reputed to be personally close to those in power, and he welds a lot of clout normally, so the fact that there is a police report on his illegal logging activities is quite interesting.This has been going on for many years, so the question is, why now ?
An attempt to bribe the Cambodia Daily to kill an article on his involvement in illegal logging was reported recently : https://cambodiaexpatsonline.com/post166 ... es#p166847

Police Link Kith Meng to Illegal Wood Racket
May 17, 2017
The National Police on Tuesday published a brief but scathing report on business mogul Kith Meng, citing anonymous sources who accuse his company of using its license to log the reservoir of the nearly completed Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam to launder timber.

Mr. Meng’s Royal Group, which is building the 400-megawatt dam with Chinese partners in Stung Treng province, has handed the job of clearing the 36,000-hectare reservoir to a subsidiary, Ang & Associates Lawyers.
Locals and NGOs have been accusing the logging operation of using the reservoir to launder timber illegally logged elsewhere for years with impunity. Tuesday’s report, posted to the National Police website, adds official weight to those claims.

“Forest destruction in Sesan district and timber smuggling for sale in Vietnam is happening in the name of the company clearing the Lower Sesan II reservoir, which belongs to Oknha Kith Meng, but authorities ignore and overlook it and do not prevent it,” the report says.

“People report that the bottom of the reservoir that Kith Meng’s company was licensed to clear has no big trees. Yet the manager of the company, named Seng, colludes with, and recruits, local people to log the forest outside the bottom of the reservoir, and then collects [the timber] and places them at the bottom of the reservoir to make illegal timber become legal.”

According to sources, the report says, Mr. Meng handed the logging operation over to an “Oknha Chhey,” who in turn handed operations over to two others, Tim Bunlin and San Choy. The same sources, it adds, say Mr. Bunlin and Mr. Choy are buying up timber in different communes and either sneaking it into the reservoir or hiding it underwater.

“Kith Meng’s logging of state-timber outside the reservoir is causing concern about the loss of natural resources in Sesan district and of imminent disaster if not prevented,” the report ends...
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/poli ... et-129845/
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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ANZ distances itself from Cambodian partner
Fri, 19 May 2017
Australian financial institution ANZ has distanced itself from the Royal Group, its local partner in a Cambodian joint venture bank, following police reports linking the group to illegal logging activities.

A report published by Cambodia’s National Police this week accused Royal Group, owned by prominent tycoon Kith Meng, of laundering illegal timber through the Lower Sesan II hydropower project. It accused the conglomerate of using its licence to clear the reservoir area as cover for its subsidiary’s laundering of timber from elsewhere.

The Royal Group has denied the claims. Royal Group owns a 45 percent stake in ANZ Royal Bank, a joint venture with ANZ that operates 15 branches with over $1 billion in assets.

Stephen Ries, spokesman for ANZ, said in a statement yesterday that the bank and its local subsidiary had no involvement or financial ties to the Royal Group’s activities.
“While the Royal Group is ANZ’s minority partner in ANZ Royal Bank, we can confirm ANZ and ANZ Royal Bank provides no funding to dam projects in Cambodia whatsoever.”
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/a ... an-partner
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Fri May 19, 2017 8:13 pm ANZ distances itself from Cambodian partner
Fri, 19 May 2017

Stephen Ries, spokesman for ANZ, said in a statement yesterday that the bank and its local subsidiary had no involvement or financial ties to the Royal Group’s activities.
“While the Royal Group is ANZ’s minority partner in ANZ Royal Bank, we can confirm ANZ and ANZ Royal Bank provides no funding to dam projects in Cambodia whatsoever.”
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/a ... an-partner
Ha ha, its not us! Honest.

Whenever I meet a businessman, I always like to give him/ her the benefit of doubt. Lol

ANZ bankrolls massive land grab in Cambodia
http://www.inclusivedevelopment.net/anz ... -cambodia/

Phnom Penh, 22 January 2014) –Two confidential social and environmental audits leaked to the Clean Sugar Campaign indicate that ANZ Royal Bank provided significant financing for a sugar plantation and refinery owned by the notorious Cambodian senator and tycoon Ly Yong Phat. ANZ confirmed its financing of the Phnom Penh Sugar Company in a meeting with campaign and community representatives on Sunday.

At the time ANZ gave the green light for the deal, Phnom Penh Sugar Co. Ltd and its sister company Kampong Speu Sugar Co. Ltd. were tied up in a very public conflict with hundreds of families in the Thpong and Oral districts of Kampong Speu province, where their sprawling 23,000 hectare sugar plantation was established by seizing homes, rice fields, orchards, grazing land and community forests relied upon by local farmers in at least 21 villages.

“It is hard to reconcile financing one of Cambodia’s most high-profile land grabs with the social and environmental commitments that ANZ made when it signed on to the Equator Principles,” said David Pred, Managing Director of Inclusive Development International.

“Lending money to Ly Yong Phat is hardly befitting of a bank that has been repeatedly ranked as the most sustainable bank globally by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. This is someone who has been implicated in violent forced evictions and land grabbing in three provinces, illegal logging and deforestation, child labor, and the use of military, police and the courts to intimidate, arrest and imprison villagers who dared to protest,” Pred said.

“This case serious calls into question the credibility of ANZ’s due diligence process, he added.

Eang Vuthy, Executive Director of Equitable Cambodia, said: “The 2010 Environmental and Socio-Economic Assessment that ANZ appears to have relied upon for its due diligence is a whitewash. Its claim that the living conditions of villagers who were resettled to small plots at the bottom of Pis mountain were either improved or remained the same could not be further from the truth - these families have suffered serious food insecurity since losing their land.”

“The assessment fails to mention the hundreds of other families whose farmland, forests and grazing land were forcibly taken by Phnom Penh Sugar and whose livelihoods were destroyed as a result. The 2013 audit’s finding that there is no child labor on the plantations is plain false,” he added.

Phal Vannak, Thpong District representative of the Sugar Justice Network, called on ANZ to help the displaced families get their land back and compensate them for their loss of livelihoods.

“If a known drug dealer wants to borrow money from someone, they probably would not give that money to him because they wouldn’t want to be responsible for his crimes. In this case, ANZ knowingly gave money to a criminal, so the bank also contributed to the crimes and must be responsible for the impacts,” he said.

Natalie Bugalski, Legal Associate of Inclusive Development International, said: “ANZ must have been aware of the misery its client was inflicting on communities because this case was reported on regularly in the press. Yet, at the same time, ANZ was touting its environmental and social credentials to the public, projecting an angelic image that could have misled socially responsible investors.”

“ANZ’s shareholders will be left wondering what other dirty deals this bank has made,” she added.

The November 2010 Environmental and Socio-economic Site Assessment is available here

BACKGROUND
In February 2010, following an appeal to private businesses by Prime Minister HE, Ly Yong Phat’s conglomerate LYP Group agreed to provide financial support for six units of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. Two of the military units that LYP Group sponsors, Battalion 42 and Battalion 313, have reportedly been present during forced evictions to clear land for plantations the Senator is affiliated with or to quash protests by affected communities.

Phnom Penh Sugar Co. Ltd. received approval from the Cambodian government for an economic land concession of approximately 9000 ha in Thpong district, Kampong Speu province in February 2010. On the same date, Kampong Speu Sugar Co. Ltd. was awarded an adjacent ELC of 9052 ha in Oral district. The side-by-side concessions are registered to Ly Yong Phat and his wife Kim Heang. On March 21, 2011, Prime Minister HE signed a sub-decree allowing land in the Oral Wildlife Protected Area to be reclassified and the Kampong Speu Sugar concession to be expanded by 4,700 ha. This brought the total landmass of the three connected concessions to over 23,000 ha - more than twice the size permitted under the Land Law.

The twin concessions encroach on more than 2000 hectares of farmland belonging to families in 15 villages in Thpong district and at least six villages in Oral district. In addition to farmland, the concessions overlapped thousands of hectares of surrounding grazing land, water resources and registered community forest that villagers in Thpong and Oral districts relied upon for their livelihoods.

With no prior notice and no court order, company staff accompanied by military, police and local authorities began clearing the villagers’ land in February 2010. The land seizures continued into 2011, affecting more than 1500 families in Oral and Thpong districts. One village, Pis, was totally destroyed and its 67 residents were forcibly relocated onto small 40x50m residential plots of rocky land at the foot of the mountain. Some of the families received between $25 - $500 in compensation, or replacement land that was significantly smaller and inferior quality to what was taken. According to Equitable Cambodia, more than 200 families whose land was grabbed have yet to receive any compensation whatsoever.

The Senator and company representatives have used Cambodia’s notoriously corrupt courts to harass the villagers in Kampong Speu into ending their protests. At least 4 villagers have been jailed since the land seizures began and there are criminal charges, arrest warrants or court summonses currently pending against at least 38 villagers.

ANZ Royal is a controlled entity of the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ), the third largest bank in Australia. ANZ is a signatory to the Equator Principles (EP). As such it commits to implementing the EP in its internal environmental and social policies, procedures and standards for financing projects and will not provide Project Finance or Project-Related Corporate Loans to projects where the client will not, or is unable to, comply with the EP.

MEDIA COVERAGE
ANZ faces accusations it financed businesses that forced villagers from their land - ABC Special Report, April 28, 2014

ANZ ethics under scrutiny over Cambodian sugar plantation loan - The Age, January 23, 2014

Uniting church wants answers from ANZ over Cambodian sugar plantation - Sydney Morning Herald, January 23, 2014

ANZ monitoring Cambodian sugar client accused of human rights abuses - ABC Radio Australia, January 23, 2014

ANZ embroiled in sugar land grab - ABC News, January 23, 2014

ANZ implicated in Cambodian sugar evictions - Cambodia Daily, January 23, 2014

ANZ Royal financing Cambodian blood sugar plantation - Phnom Penh Post, January 23, 2014
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

Post by Bitte_Kein_Lexus »

ANZ has been trying to get rid of Royal Group for years but they can't.
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

Sorry. It was a mistake. Kith Meng's Royal Group is not involved in illegally trafficking logs to Vietnam.

Report fingering tycoon in timber crime taken down
Tue, 23 May 2017
A national police spokesman yesterday said a report alleging that tycoon Kith Meng’s Royal Group was colluding with loggers to launder timber was mistakenly posted on the body’s official site by a “tired” employee who meant to share the information with local reporters but not publish it.

“On that day, [the individual] was tired and mistakenly posted an article and, frankly, we dropped it immediately after seeing a report about it,” Chantharith said. “It was wrongly uploaded. They meant to share it [with other reporters] but instead it was posted. We also wondered why the police website published an accusatory [item] like that. It is careless.”

Citing anonymous sources, the piece accused the firm of using its licence allowing it to log the reservoir area of the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam – which it is building with a Chinese firm – to launder timber sourced from other areas.

Reached yesterday, Stung Treng Provincial Hall spokesman Men Kong, who last week said provincial authorities would follow up on the National Police report, said the investigation had been negated by the removal of the piece.
“After being made aware of [the post] we immediately looked for it but could not find it,” he said. “There’s nothing to work on anymore.”
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/r ... taken-down
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Tue May 23, 2017 11:02 pm Reached yesterday, Stung Treng Provincial Hall spokesman Men Kong, who last week said provincial authorities would follow up on the National Police report, said the investigation had been negated by the removal of the piece.
“After being made aware of [the post] we immediately looked for it but could not find it,” he said. “There’s nothing to work on anymore.”
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Re: Total destruction: Behind the Lower Sesan II Dam lies 5 years of illegal logging.

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