A street carved from a reforestation concession into the guts of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in Cambodia seems to be facilitating the unlawful logging and trafficking of priceless timber, a Mongabay investigation has revealed.The street originates within the concession of Think Biotech, an organization beforehand implicated in forestry crimes, however its director denies being concerned within the new street.The street had superior 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) into the ostensibly protected Prey Lang earlier than authorities ordered a crackdown — one which activists say was only for present and focused solely small-time loggers.Community teams and activists say Prey Lang’s forests are being decimated at alarming charges, with satellite tv for pc knowledge exhibiting almost the identical quantity of forest cowl loss up to now 5 years as within the earlier 18.
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A contemporary incursion into Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary has added new proof to mounting allegations of timber laundering by Think Biotech, which exists on paper as a reforestation firm producing sustainable wooden.
Satellite imagery confirmed that between April 6 and 9, a contemporary path had been crudely minimize into Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary from Think Biotech’s 34,000-hectare (84,000-acre) concession, which extends alongside the border of the protected forest in Stung Treng and Kratie provinces.
Prey Lang is mainland Southeast Asia’s largest lowland evergreen rainforest and a significant carbon sink. The sanctuary spanned almost 430,000 hectares (1.06 million acres) till August this yr, when the Ministry of Environment elevated the dimensions of Prey Lang to 489,663 hectares (1.21 million acres).
The enlargement of Prey Lang, nevertheless, comes after among the worst years on report for unlawful logging within the wildlife sanctuary.
Satellite imagery from April 2023 exhibits building of a brand new street that seems to start inside Think Biotech’s concession. By April 12, it had minimize a meandering path nearly 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep into the protected forest of Prey Lang. The path seemed to be certain straight for a cluster of group forests, a lot of which maintain old-growth resin timber which were sustainably tapped by Indigenous communities for generations.
Satellite imagery offered by Planet Labs exhibits the event of a brand new street operating from Think Biotech’s concession in Cambodia’s Stung Treng province into the protected Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. Image by Andrés Alegría / Mongabay.
In a June interview with Mongabay, Think Biotech’s director, Lu Chu Chang, denied being concerned within the creation of the brand new street capturing out of his concession into the protected space.
However, communities have beforehand complained to USAID by its now-defunct $21 million Greening Prey Lang conservation initiative that Think Biotech — or subcontracted loggers engaged on its behalf — had pressured the communities, attempting to coerce them into promoting their resin timber. The communities themselves don’t really personal the timber, solely the best to faucet the resin from them, so even these resin timber that had been offered to loggers consensually had been minimize down illegally.
These complaints got here in repeatedly from at the least 2019, in line with USAID’s reviews on Prey Lang, till June 2021, when USAID opted to redirect funding away from the Ministry of Environment as a result of continued commercial-scale unlawful logging going down in Prey Lang.
Think Biotech has constantly denied allegations that it’s been concerned, however lecturers, activists, civil society teams, communities and journalists have collectively compiled huge troves of proof that time to the abuse of Indigenous teams in Prey Lang by unlawful logging.
All roads result in Think Biotech
Chang strongly denied being concerned in unlawful logging or that the brand new street slicing a path by Prey Lang, towards communities’ resin timber, had been constructed by his firm. “If it’s somebody from my concession, you suppose I can cease them? I’ve no weapon, I’m no soldier, I’m the businessman, so how can I do it?” he mentioned.
“From our concession or not, I don’t know, however I by no means acquired this timber. Somebody I do know acquired this timber however this isn’t our workforce.”
Later within the interview, Chang refuted his earlier declare that he knew who was logging in Prey Lang exterior the Think Biotech concession. He additionally denied realizing who constructed the street or who was taking timber from the realm.
Lu Chu Chang, director of Think Biotech, vehemently denied involvement in illegally felling timber in Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary throughout his interview with Mongabay in June 2023. Image by Chasing Deforestation / Mongabay.
Composite satellite tv for pc imagery for May 2023 produced by Planet, a geospatial knowledge firm, exhibits holes within the forest cover across the tail finish of the brand new street that weren’t seen in imagery from December 2022, in addition to stark contrasts in a year-on-year evaluation of images from May 2022.
The street additionally leads straight into the Mitsui REDD+ undertaking space, which is managed by Conservation International, and strikes into a comparatively untouched section of major forest inside Prey Lang. This new street has opened up entry to deeper, older-growth forest — near group protected areas the place priceless resin timber nonetheless exist.
Chang denied that this timber ever ended up in his concession, as an alternative directing feedback to the federal government.
“Please no, I can’t discuss an excessive amount of, the federal government does the investigation, they know nicely, ask them, why [do] you ask me?” he mentioned. “If I’m the forest legal, I’d be caged already.”
By April 20, the street had superior one other kilometer west, reaching 11 km (6.8 mi); by April 25, building reached 12 km (7.5 mi) into Prey Lang.
Then the street got here to a halt.
Initially recognized on satellite tv for pc imagery, the brand new street crossing the boundary of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary was constructed from inside Think Biotech’s concession over the course of April 2023. Image by Chasing Deforestation / Mongabay.
On April 26, deputy commander of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) Sao Sokha gave directions to Cambodia’s army police by way of voice message, ordering them to crack down on unlawful logging in Kampong Thom, Kratie, Preah Vihear and Stung Treng — the 4 provinces that Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary straddles.
“If it’s crucial to make use of armored automobiles to catch this group, the forest destroyers, and to handcuff them, what number of of them are nonetheless destroying the forest,” Sokha mentioned within the voice message. Sokha can also be commander of the Cambodian gendarmerie and chairs the National Commission for the Suppression of Natural Resource Crimes.
This order was picked up by Koh Santepheap, a pro-government information outlet that had just some days earlier reported on a procession of koy-yun, a sort of tractor favored by loggers in Cambodia, carrying timber out of the protected space and reportedly delivering it to Think Biotech.
“If district and provincial officers don’t crack down on crime, we’ll crack down, and if they’ve weapons and shoot us, shoot them again,” Sokha mentioned within the voice message that unfold quickly throughout the messaging app Telegram.
An estimated 150 army cops had been then deployed to Prey Lang nearly instantly after Sokha’s orders, marking the newest in a string of makes an attempt to curb rampant unlawful logging.
For years, environmental activists have reported incidents of unlawful logging, however authorities have been unwilling or unable to guard Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. This logging truck was seen transporting timber close to Think Biotech’s concession in 2020. Image by Ma Chettra.
Guns for present
When approached for touch upon the outcomes of this yr’s crackdown on unlawful logging in Prey Lang, Sokha couldn’t be reached by cellphone after which learn however didn’t reply to questions despatched by Mongabay over Telegram.
Eng Hy, spokesperson for the Cambodian gendarmerie and the National Commission for the Suppression of Natural Resource Crimes, mentioned “The knowledge is just not on my hand. We confiscated the wooden and machines, however we didn’t depend [them].”
For many, the crackdown was seen as one other performative show of authority forward of the July 23 nationwide election, the place the ruling occasion gained 120 of the 125 seats within the nationwide legislature.
In 2011, members of the Prey Lang Community Network, a grassroots activism group intent of preserving the protected space, burn an unmarked stockpile of unlawful timber shortly earlier than native authorities try and arrest the late forest activist Chut Wutty. Image equipped.
“The crackdown of Sao Sokha, it was solely a brief time frame however we see that it was not efficient as a result of they had been solely in a position to crack down on koy-yun drivers whereas the massive log vehicles had been free,” mentioned Phai Bunleang, chief of the group forest in Teuk Khmao, Kratie province.
Speaking to Mongabay in July, Bunleang mentioned the gendarmerie solely arrested 12 loggers, however that these had been “small-time folks” working for a day by day wage, incomes 450,000 Khmer Riel (a bit of over $100) per cubic meter of timber transported.
“Those 12 had been despatched to jail, however the massive bosses [remain] free,” Bunleang added. “The troops of Sao Sokha have already left [Prey Lang] over a month now after sending these loggers to courtroom.”
On June 30, then-environment minister Say Samal confirmed that he was conscious of a brand new street being minimize by Prey Lang coming from Think Biotech’s concession, including that an investigation had been launched.
“Since the investigation is just not but accomplished, it’s not possible to conclude who’s behind the alleged street building,” Samal mentioned in a response to written questions submitted to the ministry by Mongabay. “We stay dedicated to transparency and can preserve the general public knowledgeable of the progress in addressing this situation. Please be assured that our most important precedence is to guard our pure sources and biodiversity, and we’ll take applicable motion if any violations are discovered.”
An aerial view of the brand new street linking Think Biotech to Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary taken in May 2023. Image by Andy Ball / Mongabay.
Prey Lang perpetrators nonetheless at massive
As of October, no updates have been made public concerning the investigation.
The pro-government Khmer Times reported on May 5 that 12 folks had been arrested, 11 of whom had been despatched to courtroom; 328,791 cubic meters (11.6 million cubic toes) of wooden had been confiscated; and an unnamed non-public firm with a concession close to Prey Lang was reportedly concerned. The identical outlet reported on May 16 that authorities had rejected a civil society group’s claims of deforestation in Prey Lang, dismissing the dimensions of unlawful logging within the sanctuary.
Gendarmerie spokesperson Hy mentioned he didn’t learn about arrests, that no corruption had been uncovered, and that he didn’t know concerning the new street minimize from Think Biotech’s concession into Prey Lang. Instead, he advised reporters in August, “If there have been crimes, we cracked down, however we didn’t discover any crimes [at Think Biotech].”
On May 24, GRK News, the gendarmerie’s official information portal, posted a photograph of a truck laden with massive spherical logs that was seized by the authorities inside Think Biotech’s concession. Authorities reportedly left the truck and the timber inside the concession whereas awaiting orders from superiors.
On May 24, 2023, the Cambodian Gendarmerie uploaded pictures of a timber truck seized contained in the Think Biotech concession throughout this yr’s crackdown. Image equipped.
When pressed to clarify whether or not 2023’s crackdown would mirror that of previous makes an attempt to curb unlawful logging in Prey Lang by merely arresting small-time loggers quite than these directing the logging operations, Samal mentioned the continued investigation in Prey Lang was complete.
“While small-time loggers could have been arrested within the crackdowns, it doesn’t imply that bigger crimes are exempt from legislation enforcement,” he mentioned, including that any allegations of bribery amongst officers could be investigated totally and that the ministry welcomes any proof or info concerning these claims.
“The Ministry of Environment is just not conscious of anybody from the ministry concerned on this matter,” he mentioned. “However, the ministry will take critical steps to take those that are discovered responsible into accountability and punishment.”
Chang, Think Biotech’s director, complained of charges that he wanted to pay to authorities officers. By legislation, timber corporations pay royalties based mostly upon their concession dimension and the quantity of timber offered, however Chang alleged he was topic to extra charges together with presents and “fortunate cash” for particular events, which Chang mentioned are sometimes small in value, however quite a few in quantity.
“You should make this sort of relationship with everyone, even with the small guys, even the small official,” he mentioned. “But I can’t pay this every single day as a result of I now not find the money for.
“Even when the federal government asks [for money] I can’t [pay], as a result of I by no means do issues illegally, I do the common method,” he added. “They ask me to pay rather a lot, however I don’t wish to, I can’t — the employees would get no wage and might I inform them I’ve no cash to pay you? No, I can’t. The authorities will get the cash from me, an excessive amount of, I can’t pay to the officers and to my very own staff, I cry, no person helps me.”
An aerial view of forest clearing inside Think Biotech’s 34,000-hectare concession that was granted in 2012 alongside alongside the jap boundary Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. Despite being a reforestation undertaking on paper, Think Biotech has repeatedly confronted allegations of trespass logging contained in the protected space its concession borders. Image by Andy Ball / Mongabay.
Checkpoints hyperlink Think Biotech’s concession to Prey Lang
Despite the restricted consequence of this yr’s crackdown, each reporters and native communities noticed that the gendarmerie’s presence in Prey Lang proved efficient within the brief time period by disrupting logging operations.
Bunleang, the group forest chief, mentioned he was additionally conscious of the brand new street minimize by Prey Lang from Think Biotech’s concession and famous that logging exercise across the concession slowed down dramatically after the gendarmerie crackdown, as Chang’s staff fled to keep away from arrest.
This was corroborated when reporters visited the Stung Treng part of Prey Lang in May, again when the gendarmerie’s crackdown was at its peak. In a village on the border of Prey Lang’s northern tip, a person who recognized himself as Long mentioned that he had been working for Think Biotech as a safety guard and warned reporters that the street into Think Biotech’s concession was seemingly blocked by army cops, including that many of the firm’s non-public safety had already fled.
Long, who was dressed within the peaked cap typical of safety guards within the concession, didn’t present proof of employment by Think Biotech, however confirmed deep familiarity with the inside of the concession, and offered particulars of timber operations that had been corroborated by third events.
Long and a person in plainclothes who Long mentioned was a colleague took reporters into the Think Biotech concession and pointed to the place unofficial picket checkpoints had been manned by the corporate’s safety, who had fled on the time, to handle the stream of timber coming in from Prey Lang.
Long took reporters to see a checkpoint that’s sometimes managed by Think Biotech’s safety workforce to regulate the stream of illegally logged timber from Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary into the corporate’s concession. It was briefly deserted in the course of the gendarmerie-led crackdown. Image by Chasing Deforestation / Mongabay.
“The firm logged tens of 1000’s of hectares [of forest] in Prey Lang forest, that is the street boundary [of the company] and Prey Lang is over right here,” Long mentioned. “This is the place the corporate has taken. This is the street of the corporate [used for] transporting timber, the river known as O’Krak.”
These checkpoints, Long mentioned, have been utilized by loggers, principally locals residing in and round Prey Lang, who minimize timber from contained in the protected space after which promote it to Think Biotech alongside roads identical to the one recognized on satellite tv for pc imagery in April.
“The massive timber are all gone from right here,” Long mentioned in reference to the Think Biotech concession, which he added had been principally cleared of pure forest. “But there are nonetheless some accessible in Prey Lang forest and this checkpoint is to stop koy-yun from transporting timber towards the river.”
According to Long, the checkpoints are there not simply to supply a handy technique of transporting illegally logged timber from Prey Lang into the corporate’s concession, but in addition to make sure that the timber is offered solely to Think Biotech.
Activists captured pictures of koy-yuns transporting timber across the Think Biotech concession at evening in 2020. Image by Ma Chettra.
“We minimize timber and promote timber to the corporate additionally,” Long mentioned, including that he wanted cash to help his earnings from Think Biotech. “They want [timber from us], if there isn’t any drawback. [But] when the army cops transfer in, [we cannot go logging].”
Long detailed the stream of illicit timber minimize down by villagers who obtain fee for the wooden from Think Biotech, including that “1000’s of koy-yun” cross by the checkpoints alongside the corporate’s concession border, with the corporate reportedly paying 700,000 riel (about $170) for a cubic meter of “pink timber.”
Two species that Long may determine by their Khmer names included koki (Hopea odorata), a resin tree species labeled as susceptible on the IUCN Red List, and beng (Afzelia xylocarpa), a reddish hardwood. Each koy-yun, he added, may maintain 1-2 m3 (35-70 ft3) of timber.
The theft of timber from Prey Lang was an open secret, Long mentioned, as a result of Think Biotech had change into “grasping” and was taking so many timber from contained in the protected space that it had change into not possible to keep up a veil of secrecy.
“Because the corporate’s [concession] has run out of massive timber, there aren’t any massive timber right here, so [they] go to steal in Prey Lang,” he mentioned. “Why don’t they broaden the concession? Because they’ll’t, it will be flawed, in order that they secretly come inside [Prey Lang] to log the timber.”
The Indigenous communities that decision Prey Lang house have been sustainable tapping resin timber for generations, however these timber are focused by unlawful loggers on account of the tree’s top, width and lack of branches that make the species ultimate for turning into plywood. Image by Thomas Cristofoletti.
A latest spike in deforestation
The new street and related logging is simply the newest abuse, in line with Svay Song, head of the Prey Lang Community Network’s (PLCN) Kratie province chapter.
The PLCN is a grassroots community-led group, largely made up of the Indigenous Kuy folks, of whom an estimated 250,000 name Prey Lang house. Working collaboratively, the PLCN has sought to defend Prey Lang from the assorted threats.
“I’ve noticed Prey Lang forest from 2000 till 2023,” Song mentioned. “I’ve been working with the PLCN and doing this for a very long time, however for the final 4 or 5 years, I see that Prey Lang forest is just getting stranger; extra steadily, we see that the forest clearance and land clearance for possession is dedicated by highly effective people.”
Chut Wutty, the late forest activist who was gunned down in 2012, apprehends unlawful loggers in Prey Lang with members of the Prey Lang Community Network whereas on patrol by the forest in 2011. Image equipped.
The PLCN’s dedication to stopping forest loss in Prey Lang, principally by patrolling the forest and making an attempt to doc the destruction or to apprehend unlawful loggers, has painted a goal on the group’s again. In February 2020, the Cambodian authorities banned the PLCN from getting into the forest, successfully ending the group’s skill to conduct patrols, stating that the NGO was not correctly registered with the Ministry of Interior and was appearing illegally.
While this hasn’t totally stopped the PLCN from monitoring forest loss inside Prey Lang, it has coincided with a spike in deforestation that the PLCN mentioned was a direct results of its patrols being stopped by the federal government.
Satellite knowledge from Global Forest Watch and the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) Laboratory present that Prey Lang misplaced 8,934 hectares (22,076 acres) of tree cowl in 2022 alone — greater than some other protected space in Cambodia. Of this loss, 6,280 hectares (15,518 acres), or 70%, was major forest. 2021 noticed a record-breaking 10,996 hectares (27,172 acres) of tree cowl in Prey Lang vanish as loggers operated with impunity below the duvet of COVID-19.
Data from Global Forest Watch exhibits how deforestation spiked sharply shortly after Lu Chu Chang took over Think Biotech in 2018. Image by Chasing Deforestation / Mongabay.
“The areas that I patrol, that I’ve seen and might nonetheless bear in mind, there are new roads [being built], there are corporations with bulldozers taking the timber,” Song mentioned. “It implies that our pure sources, our forests, are getting fewer and fewer. It is unthinkable in comparison with 5 years in the past.”
This spike additionally coincides with a change in administration at Think Biotech, whose South Korean administrators deserted the undertaking in December 2018, permitting it to fall into the fingers of Chang, who additionally heads the now largely inactive Cambodia Timber Industry Association, as soon as a strong foyer group for industrial loggers. Chang can also be a director of Angkor Plywood, an organization that has been repeatedly accused of shopping for laundered timber from Think Biotech.
Between 2001 and 2018, Prey Lang misplaced some 40,000 hectares (99,000 acres) of tree cowl, in line with Global Forest Watch, however between 2019 and 2022, greater than 36,400 hectares (90,000 acres) had been misplaced, making the previous 4 years nearly as damaging because the 18 years that preceded them. Between 2002 and 2022, Prey Lang misplaced almost a fifth of its major forest cowl.
Over the course of 2018, Prey Lang misplaced 4,363 hectares (10,781 acres) of forest cowl, a determine that almost doubled to 7,442 hectares (18,390 acres) in 2019, instantly after Chang took over, after which to eight,994 hectares (22,225 acres) misplaced in 2020, earlier than 2021 turned the worst yr for forest cowl loss on report in Prey Lang, when 10,996 hectares of forest had been cleared.
Preliminary knowledge for 2023 from Global Forest Watch recommend deforestation this yr is about to exceed 2022’s 8,394 hectares of tree cowl loss, notably within the southern portion of the reserve.
“Actually, Prey Lang, I do know, has massive troubles,” Chang mentioned when introduced with the information. “This drawback is just not from me as a result of I acquired Think Biotech.”
In 2020, unlawful loggers working close to the Think Biotech concession took benefit of the COVID-19 pandemic to quietly intestine Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. Image by Ma Chettra.
Prey Lang hurtling towards destruction
But this isn’t the primary time {that a} new street has sprouted from Think Biotech’s concession and fueled the illicit timber commerce in Prey Lang. In April 2022, Mongabay reporters uncovered a brand new marble mine that had been licensed to function contained in the protected space, on to the west of Think Biotech’s concession. Over the primary three months of 2022, a street was constructed, once more starting in Think Biotech’s concession, and linked as much as the marble mining operation owned by KP Cement, one other politically linked firm.
The gendarmerie-led crackdown additionally noticed this street fall silent briefly.
“These days, it’s quiet,” Bunleang mentioned in July. “But [the illegal logging and transporting of timber] remains to be anarchic — the cement firm that destroyed the forest has not transported the logs out but however they nonetheless minimize the timber.”
In spite of the transient respite offered by Sao Sokha’s crackdown, the continued logging and mining of Prey Lang seems to be returning to earlier ranges.
With the crackdown reportedly over by June, Global Forest Watch knowledge present 116,929 deforestation alerts between June 1 and Sept. 7, with a lot of the destruction localized round mining operations within the south of the protected space and the northwest, near Long’s village within the Stung Treng part of the forest.
Against this backdrop, activists say they worry the actual perpetrators of forest crimes is not going to be delivered to justice earlier than the implications of Cambodia’s uniquely excessive charge of deforestation come house to roost.
“If the forest is gone, it would trigger pure disasters, impacting extra pure sources — our biodiversity can be misplaced,” mentioned Song from the PLCN.
“We request that the media assist to disseminate the Prey Lang points as a result of it’s our forest,” Song mentioned. “We shield it, we work for days, we voluntarily face many challenges and sacrifice various things for its safety for Khmer folks; please assist to guard and implement the legislation correctly in order that our pure sources will final till the following era.”
Banner picture: The roughly 12km street minimize by Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary carves into the protected forest, heading in direction of communities’ resin timber. Image by Andy Ball / Mongabay.
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