Nearly three tonnes of illegally logged rosewood was seized during a raid on the home of a former military police officer in Stung Treng province yesterday.
Provincial deputy prosecutor Sun Yeut, who took part in a multi-departmental raid that included police and Forestry Administration officials, said the seized luxury wood had been sent to the local forestry office but that no arrests had been made. …
Thailand and Cambodia have signed four new agreements focused on bolstering trust and maintaining security.
Defence Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat made the announcement after the 9th GBC meeting at Wangjuntr Golf Park in Rayong’s Wang Chan district.
He said one of the four agreements concerned the spread of information.
Both parties committed to promoting positive and factual information about each other to help bolster trust and respect, the minister said.
The second agreement concerns the suppression of illegal activities in border areas, especially drug smuggling and logging. …
The third agreement involves supporting residents living in border areas by promoting job creation, tourism, education and health care. …
Both parties also agreed to endorse the results of the Joint Working Group (JWG) meetings, which aim to solve border disputes, as well as the joint agreement on landmine clearance drawn up by the Thailand and Cambodian Mine Action Centres.
On May 13, we ran an interview with London-based NGO Global Witness accusing the Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation of financing two Vietnamese rubber companies that are allegedly involved in land grabs in Cambodia and Laos. …
We asked both banks for a response and invited them on to the show to explain their positions. Both declined to be interviewed but sent these statements:
Michael West, Managing Director / Head of Communications, Asia Pacific [Deutsche Bank]:
“Deutsche Bank does not provide financing to Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAGL), Dong Phu Rubber or Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG). The DWS fund shares referred to are held on behalf of investors. Deutsche Bank provides clerical trustee services to HAGL which is a listed company as it does to thousands of publicly listed companies globally.”
Hannfried von Hindenburg, Head of Communications for IFC in East Asia and the Pacific:
“IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, works with financial intermediaries, such as funds, because they can contribute to inclusive and sustainable financial markets that are essential to eradicating poverty and job creation. …
IFC will carefully study the findings of the Global Witness research and taking this research into consideration is part of our ongoing monitoring of our investments in Dragon Capital and VEIL.”
A Vietnamese rubber tycoon has rejected accusations by Global Witness, a group that campaigns on resource issues, that it was involved in a land grabbing crisis in Southeast Asia.
Doan Nguyen Duc, the chairman of Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) Group, told Vietnamese media the information provided by London-based Global Witness in its report was total fabrication. …
According to the report, the two firms have caused widespread evictions, illegal logging and food insecurity in the countries. …
It alleges the IFC invested US$14.95 million in a Vietnamese fund that holds 5 percent equity in HAGL, while Deutsche Bank owns some $4.5-million-worth of HAGL shares. Deutsche Bank is also said to have 1.2-million shares in a subsidiary company of VRG amounting to more than $3 million.
As news of the accusation spread in Vietnam, HAGL shares fall around 6 percent to VND21,400 on Tuesday.
Duc lost VND436.25 billion (US$20.83 million) on over 311 million shares, nearly half the company’s shares, he holds.
After the accusations were made public, HAGL released a statement confirming that the company’s subsidiaries invested in rubber plantations in each country but the firm “denies seizing land, illegally exploiting wood and other corruption behaviors in Laos and Cambodia.” …
In the wake of a new report from environmental rights group Global Witness rebuking the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank for investing in rubber plantations accused of illegal logging and forced evictions, both institutions have denied responsibility and deflected the blame elsewhere.
But the investments targeted in the new report are not the first projects for which both the IFC and Deutsche Bank have received criticism in Cambodia.
Local NGOs filed a complaint with the IFC’s compliance ombudsman in 2009 on behalf of 79 families worried that the expansion of Sihanoukville airport was moving forward without their consultation or guarantees of compensation should they be evicted.
Since 2003, the IFC has helped finance Cambodia Airports, which is owned by French construction giant Vinci Group, for projects involving runway expansions at Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville airports.
In July, 387 families living along the outskirts of the Phnom Penh International Airport were served with eviction letters due to expansion plans to the runway. The families insist they have legal tenure to their homes, but the government disagrees and has refused their demands for compensation.
Though the evictions have yet to take place, families have been told by local authorities that the eviction will take place. It was not known yesterday if the ombudsman is monitoring the Phnom Penh airport expansion plan. …
According to Equitable Cambodia, a land rights NGO, Deutsche Bank through DWS [Vietnam Fund] was also invested in KSL—a Thai firm that owns two sugar plantations in Cambodia, which are accused of causing the eviction of hundreds of local villagers. DWS divested from KSL in 2011. …
Deutsche Bank and the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC) have poured millions of dollars into Vietnamese rubber companies operating in Cambodia that have engaged in illegal logging and forced evictions of local farmers, the environmental rights group Global Witness says in a new report released today.
Drawing on satellite images, government and corporate documents, field visits and exchanges with firms involved, Global Witness deduced that the IFC currently has $14.95 million stake in a Vietnamese-based investment fund investing in Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), a Vietnamese rubber firm listed on the London Stock Exchange. The organization also says that Deutsche Bank holds another $4.5 million worth of HAGL shares, along with $3.3 million in shares of Dong Phu, a member of the state-owned Vietnamese Rubber Group (VRG). …
Combined, Global Witness says, HAGL and VRG alone now control at least 180,000 hectares of rubber plantations in Cambodia.
“HAGL and VRG’s ultimate ownership of these [subsidiary] companies lies behind an intricate web of shell companies,” the Global Witness report says. “This allows them to disguise the fact that they have massively exceeded Cambodia’s legal limit on land holdings,” which sets the ceiling for any on person at 10,000 hectares. …
Royal Thai Navy ships intercepted a Cambodian fishing boat illegally smuggling 10 million baht in Siamese rosewood out of the kingdom. …
The HTMS Chao Phraya staffed with military, customs and forestry office personnel captured the 18-meter-long fishing vessel carrying 296 logs in its fish holds April 28 in Rayong Bay. …
Navy officials said the smuggled logs were to be offloaded in Vietnamese waters. …
The Ministry of Agriculture has signed a deal with Try Pheap Import Export to give the firm the right to purchase all timber felled in economic land concessions (ELCs) in Ratanakkiri province, according to a letter sent from the Agriculture Ministry to the Forestry Administration in February.
Signed by Lor Raksmey, secretary-general at the Ministry of Agriculture, and sent to Forestry Administration chief Chheng Kim Sun, the letter says that the firm owned by well-connected casino, mining and agriculture mogul Try Pheap has been granted purchasing rights over timber in Ratanakkiri in order “to meet local demand and for export” and “generate royalties and dividends for the state’s budget.”
“The forestry administration will allow Try Pheap Import Export to buy wood from every economic land concession located in Ratanakkiri province,” the letter, dated February 26, reads.
Though a senior official in the province said the agreement will help improve the regulation of Ratanakkirri’s timber trade by directing felled trees through only one company, a provincial land rights monitor said the deal would create a market that encourages illegal logging and accelerate the rate at which the forest is being deforested.
Although concessionaires are required under law to log only within their ELCs and pay royalties on any timber they extract, community activists and environmental monitors have complained that many companies regularly cut down trees and systematically smuggle logs across the border to be sold in Vietnam. …
Cambodia’s government has granted ELCs in Ratanakkirri to 27 companies covering a total of 222,933 hectares, according to figures compiled from Adhoc. …
In February 2011, Prime Minister Hun Sen granted Try Pheap two 70-year leases covering 18,885 hectares within the park in Cambodia’s northeast. …
Nearly a tonne of rosewood was uncovered in a raid yesterday in Kampong Speu in which the suspect successfully fled after injuring an officer, police officials said. …
“According to the quality assessment, I can say a rough value of that rosewood is $300,000,” he [Keo Pisey, provincial police chief] said. “Now, we will continue to investigate and search to arrest him and his accomplices, because I think that case involves not only him.”
Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday.
The move comes after a number of protests in recent weeks at two villages in the district against a firm known as Company 72 that is working in an economic land concession area granted to conglomerate Men Sarun Co., Ltd. …
A Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RACF) official in Oddar Meanchey province said he would be happy to meet with community forestry members who say that new military bases are threatening their plans to sell millions of dollars worth of carbon credits to foreign companies in return for protecting the environment. …
Yesterday, Major General San Sear, deputy commander of intervention infantry for RCAF’s Division II, which oversees the area … denied the widespread forest clearance that members of the forestry network have accused the military of. …
“Our soldiers do not cut down the trees inside the protected forests because we also need the trees to give us shade,” he said. “There are no RCAF soldiers who have engaged in logging and deforestation.”
Maj. Gen. Sear said orders from the highest levels of government had been given to set up bases in the protected forest zone, which runs along Cambodia’s contentious border with Thailand.
Mr. [Sar] Thlai [head of the community forest network area], said locals found out about yet another military base in another forest when a group of soldiers forced a community patrol team to give up a cache of wood and chainsaws it had recently seized from illegal loggers.
At a meeting with local military officials about a year ago, the military said it was taking over 2,500 hectares in two of those forests, Mr. Thlai said. …
Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav are all subsidiaries of HAGL, according to the company’s 2012 annual report.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas and Hoang Anh Lumphat’s concessions lie inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which rights groups have said is being decimated by illegal loggers who then bring the wood onto company land.
Very similarly named companies – including one called Hoang An Andong Meas, which has a 9,775-hectare concession inside Virachey National Park – operate elsewhere in the province.
Article 59 of the Land Law stipulates individuals or legal entities controlled by the same person cannot hold more than 10,000 hectares of ELCs, even if it is spread over multiple concessions. …
Cambodia has lost almost a quarter of its forests in the past 40 years due to rapid development and China’s demand for timber, according to a new report released yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on the Greater Mekong Region.
Looking at five countries in the Mekong Region- Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam- WWF has calculated, using data from both satellite analysis and U.N. country reports, that almost a third of the region’s forests have been destroyed. Titled Ecosystems in the Greater Mekong Region, the report says that the presence of primary forest is “extremely low” in Cambodia, and only approximately 10 million hectares of forest cover remain in the county.
According to Agence Kampuchea Presse, Prime Minister Hun Sen said this week that 1.5 million hectares of forest cover has been used for economic land concessions, while there remains 9.5 million hectares of forest cover left in the country. However since 1.2 million hectares of these concessions have been allocated for rubber plantations, Mr. Hun Sen said that these land grants, in fact constitute forest cover …
The military’s ongoing clearing of community forests in Oddar Meanchey province risks derailing Cambodia’s first forest-based carbon trading scheme backed by the U.N., according to the latest assessment of the project.
Community forest groups, who stand to earn millions from the project, said on Wednesday that they have proposed a meeting with officials at the provincial government’s headquarters in Samraong City for Wednesday in order to discuss illegal logging in the area.
Members of the network of 13 community forests that make up the 68,000-hectare project area have been complaining about the illegal for years and more recently about a proliferation of military bases in the forests. …
With the potential risks down the line, and more projects from REDD- a U.N. sponsored initiative for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation- in the works around Cambodia, the outcome of the project in Oddar Meanchey could prove critical. …
As part of the REDD initiative, the project aims to convince western companies looking to offset their carbon emission to pay for the carbon the community forests will keep locked in the trees. The scheme only works, of course if the trees remain standing.
Sa Thlai, who heads the provinces community forest network, has been warning that military bases have been “destroying” the project for months, and that more than half of one of the 13 forests had already been felled. …
When activists Mom Sakin and Sorn Siyan took a stand against illegal logging in Kratie province last month, they were allegedly threatened with violence and lawsuits from officials.
“Powerful people who wanted to intimidate us shot their guns into the air to prevent us from going into the forest,” Sakin, a member of the provincial branch of the Community Peace Network, said yesterday. …
Stories like these are becoming more frequent among human rights defenders and activists, particularly those seeking to counter illegal logging, rights group Adhoc said yesterday.
“So far in 2013, 48 [human rights defenders] and activists have been threatened for their work relating to the protection of environmental and natural resources,” Adhoc said in a statement. “Those working to protect poorer Cambodians against rights abuses have repeatedly found themselves threatened and intimidated by the authorities, often at the bequest of rich and well-connected business figures.” …
Illegal border movements, illegal logging, drug trafficking, illegal fishing and unofficial cross border trade are among the issues being confronted by Laos and Cambodia along their shared border at the moment.
The report was made during a meeting held between Champassak provincial authorities from Laos and Strung Treng provincial authorities of Cambodia, in order to discuss various cross border issues which are affecting public order and security in the region. …
In addition, the two provinces agreed to support and facilitate the implementation of the cooperation projects stipulated under Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam (CLV) Development Triangle Area. …
Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. …
“The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but nothing happens and Company 72 never stops,” said Chhay Thy, provincial co-ordinator for rights group Adhoc. Companies are not allowed to fell protected forest even if the forest overlaps with land granted to the company, he added. …
Company 72, for which no contact information was available, was allegedly caught clearing more than 40 hectares of protected forest in another part of O’Yadav district last week and was summonsed by the Ratanakkiri provincial court to face accusations of illegal logging in February. …
More than 40 hectares of protected forest in Rattanakiri’s O’Yadav district was razed by a Vietnamese company over the course of six days before they were stopped yesterday by villagers and investigators from rights group Adhoc, a local official said.
Sav Hlin, a village chief in the district, said he had received news from villagers that the company – known to them as Company 72 – had been working in the area.
“After I found out they were clearing the forest, we went straight there to stop the vehicles immediately,” said Hlin, who added that more than 40 hectares of the forest land had been cleared by the time he got there with a group of villagers and two Adhoc investigators. …
A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. …
Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 logs had been discovered in the area and also rejected the $100 million estimate of logs’ worth. “I only said that the provincial Forestry Administration discovered more than 3,000 pieces of luxury wood,” Mr. Thy said. “I am not sure where this figure comes from,” he added, referring to the $100 million.
Although the timber was discovered on a concession held by the Hua Anh rubber company, Mr. [Phan] Phoeun [provincial Forestry Administration chief] said he did not believe the company was involved in logging. …
My Thy said … 29 families who had relied on the trees for resin had told Adhoc staff that they had no choice in the felling of the trees, but were compensated by Hua Anh company as well as Fib Rubber, a Chinese rubber firm. …
Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. …
[Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood was discovered on a concession held by Vietnamese Company Hoa Anh in Andong Meas District, he did not believe the company was involved in illegal logging.
“We think that villagers probably brought the wood to that land to hide it before transporting it to another place,” he said. …
[Ratanakkiri Provincial Court prosecutor Sous La] declined to comment if the individuals were employed by Hoa Anh.
Hoa Anh was granted 9,000 hectares of land on the border of Andong Meas, Lumphat and O’Yadaw districts in 2010. …
