Is it possible to save Cambodia's forests ?

[CEOCambodiaNews]

Cambodia: where saving the forests is a matter of life and death
By Jack Davies
18 April 2018
“After the murders, not many people dared to go inside the jungle,” Ouch Leng writes in an email.
In 2016, Leng won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize for his fearless work bringing to light the defoliation and deforestation of his native Cambodia, a country which has lost more than 75 per cent of its forest cover to logging over the last three decades. The trade in Cambodia’s timber is one that has generated countless billions of dollars, but all too often that money ends up in the pockets of kleptocratic tycoons, corrupt army generals and straight-up criminals. Those who pay the ultimate price are Cambodia’s forest dwellers and environmental activists who find themselves dispossessed, robbed of their livelihoods, and sometimes even murdered.

Leng is conscious of the danger he places himself in every day but says that he will continue to put his life on the line to “fight with all my best against the illegal logging and timber business”.

The latest casualties of Cambodia’s deforestation are Thul Khna, an environmental activist with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Environment Ministry ranger Teurn Soknai, and their military police escort Sek Wathana.

As the sun set over the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary on 30 January, shots broke through the gloam while the three men were patrolling the ever-thinning forests of Mondulkiri province in eastern Cambodia.

According to a statement issued three days later by the WCS, the men were killed while “returning from the O’huoc border area after locating an illegal logging camp and confiscating chainsaws and motorbikes used for transporting wood.”

Regional Governor Svay Sam Eng told the Phnom Penh Post that they died following a shootout with local border police. Cambodian Environment Ministry spokesman Eang Sophalleth did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The deaths come as no surprise to Marcus Hardtke, a German environmentalist who has been studying and monitoring illegal logging in Cambodia for over 20 years.

“Usually it’s other ‘uniforms’. It’s not the local loggers resorting to violence,” he says. “Our experience is generally it’s mostly about money or debt going wrong. Some people who are logging pay money to the men in the uniforms, and then someone else comes along in a uniform and takes away the timber. The loggers say: ‘Hey, we already paid!’ And it escalates that way.”

Hardtke, who has been deported from Cambodia more than once for his work, says that January’s murders will not stop him. “I mean, we had other killings before. In Preah Vihear [province] not so long ago, two guys were killed on patrol while they were sleeping in the forest,” he says.

“It’s situational. You cannot be too sure if there are some idiots with guns running around connected to military. In that sense it’s quite dangerous.”

In the early 2000s, Hardtke spent five years monitoring forest crimes for Global Witness, an investigative NGO documenting corruption in the natural resources industry, until the government kicked them out of the country in 2005. Their crime was producing an in-depth report titled Taking a Cut – Institutionalised Corruption and Illegal Logging in Cambodia’s Aural Wildlife Sanctuary which identified clear links between illegal logging and the country’s business and political elites.

While working with Global Witness, Hardtke often partnered up with former Cambodian military police officer Chut Wutty. Just a couple of years after the NGO was given the boot by the government, Hardtke and Wutty set up shop on their own, doing what they do best: gathering first hand evidence of the criminals stripping Cambodia’s once lush forests bare.

“I was working with him, finding funding with him and giving him back-up,” he recalls. “Until he got killed in 2012.”
Continued: https://www.equaltimes.org/cambodia-whe ... tcVENIxWEc

[Barang chgout]

Wutty was killed out here 6 years ago almost to the day. The idea that locals are now 'scared to go in the jungle ' is laughable.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

[that genius]

Wutty was killed out here 6 years ago almost to the day. The idea that locals are now 'scared to go in the jungle ' is laughable.

Yes, but for many it is a reality. Loads of weterners go solo hiking in wildreness areas. Khmers? No way.

[markd]

the planet is destined to be a a lump of concrete orbiting the sun

[Barang chgout]

Wutty was killed out here 6 years ago almost to the day. The idea that locals are now 'scared to go in the jungle ' is laughable.

Yes, but for many it is a reality. Loads of weterners go solo hiking in wildreness areas. Khmers? No way.

The jungle is literally crawling with independent operators, every day of the year. Not one foreigner amongst them. Scared of the jungle? Get real! It's where they live!

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

[Felgerkarb]

No. Next question.

[that genius]

No. Next question.

Is it beer o' clock yet?

[Felgerkarb]

No. Next question.

Is it beer o' clock yet?

Will be at Larry's by 12 so almost.

[Barang chgout]

No. Next question.

No, What? Directed at me? Unsure of battlestar galactic phrasing.

Sent from my SM-G570Y using Tapatalk

[CEOCambodiaNews]

US Forest Service to train Cambodian rangers
26 April 2018
Ministry of Environment rangers will soon receive training from experts with the US Forest Service in a bid to improve their ability to crack down on forest crimes and protect conservation areas.

US Forest Service officials on Tuesday met with Environment Minister Say Sam Al to discuss cooperating on a training project, according to a brief statement posted on the ministry’s official Facebook page on Tuesday.

Chea Samang, head of protected areas at the Ministry of Environment, on Wednesday said the training will be 11 months long and is scheduled to begin next month, and will be funded by the US.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... an-rangers