Twenty activists surveyed the Prey Lang forest for four days last week despite a recent wave of suppression against environmentalists, who have continued their work in defiance of a ban against community patrols.
Marker poles have begun to be laid through the center of the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary for the construction of a major power transmission line. Members of a community protected area disrupted by the project fear oncoming harm for wildlife and communities.
Community forests and a timber company overlap on the land east of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, leading to competing interests and allegations of impropriety.
Forest watchers in 2020 filed 90 percent fewer reports of illegal logging amid officials’ threats against community patrols, according to an international research report, as one advocate said young people were refraining from joining patrols out of fear of repercussions.
Alleging renewed large-scale illegal logging, environmentalists around the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary said authorities should take action to stop deforestation before it was too late, just as officials had reclaimed 60,000 hectares of protected flooded forests around the Tonle Sap lake.
An anti-logging activist was on Tuesday convicted of assault against an alleged timber trader, as rights groups linked the verdict to ongoing harassment and intimidation against environmentalists in the country.
In under three weeks, a senior U.S. official pressed Prime Minister Hun Sen over a controversial navy base; a defense attache cut short a visit to the base, saying he was denied full access; and USAID diverted millions in funds away from the Cambodian government.
The U.S. says it is ending aid to government entities under Greening Prey Lang, a project aimed at protecting the sanctuary, as the government silences local communities and civil society partners while “not adequately” prosecuting and putting an end to illegal logging.
Nine years to the day after environmentalist Chut Wutty was shot dead while investigating illegal logging in Koh Kong province, activists vowed to continue his work and keep watch over the country’s dwindling forests.
In an open letter, forestry activists said they were “appalled” by USAID recently claiming to “work directly” with them, saying they had been turned down from participating in USAID-run conservation projects, and the American agency “never supported us.”
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