Loggers are targeting protected forests in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains using the cover of a new hydropower dam
PURSAT/KOH KONG, Cambodia — Rumbling south down a rutted dirt track in the western Cambodian province of Pursat, past prone excavators and makeshift worker encampments, the green slopes of the Cardamom Mountains loomed suddenly from around the bend. To the south of the dam, an outpost of bored Cambodian soldiers from Battalion 303 are stationed along the border road, while to the north sits the M.D.S. Thma Da Special Economic Zone , which has repeatedly been
Satellite imagery analysis confirmed that, between November 2023 and June 2024, at least 20 individual routes spanning a combined 30 km were built from inside the designated reservoir boundaries, extending out into the sanctuary’s forests. The reservoirs themselves are within a shrubby valley, offering minimal supplies of valuable timber, but these routes have been carved out over the rolling slopes and into pristine forest.
These documents were verified by Prak Bunny, chief of the Cambodia Forestry Administration’s cantonment in Koh Kong, the government agency typically responsible for overseeing the sale of timber. In a June phone interview with Mongabay, Bunny said the initial timber auctions had already been completed and that he didn’t know whether there would be more. The company, he added, had paid taxes on the sale of the timber to the National Bank of Cambodia. When asked how much was paid in taxes, Bunny said he was in a meeting and promptly hung up the phone.
Logging routes that Mongabay saw at the northern section of the Stung Meteuk are clearly extending beyond the boundaries of the reservoir into protected forest. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay.At the time we visited the dam, hundreds of gendarmerie officers and Ministry of Environment rangers had descended on Pursat province to
The forests and mountains that house these rare species are being eviscerated at an alarming rate, with 2023 seeing some 6,200 hectares of forest lost, making it theWhile the Stung Meteuk project has resulted in new logging routes that track a path into virgin forest to the east of the reservoirs, previous deforestation within Phnom Samkos has been localized to two areas controlled byPheap owns the M.D.S.
Source: Holiday News (holidaynews.net)
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