Forest and community activists in a northwestern province in Cambodia have expressed concerns about illegal loggers who have started producing charcoal for export to Thailand,destroying protected areas of community forests in the process.
The loggers have been producing charcoal for more than a month after felling trees in Samlot district of Battambang province, although officials in charge of the protected forests have turned a blind eye towards their production and export activities, activists said.
“Cambodia is different from Thailand, and Thai authorities urge their villagers not to log but to instead buy charcoal from us [Cambodians],” the activist, who declined to be named for safety reasons, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “If we don’t resolve this problem soon, our forest will vanish.”
Officials said the charcoal business has been operating for more than a month, but local authorities have ignored it.
Samlot houses many charcoal kilns that turn wood into coal over several weeks, according to a report in The Phnom Penh Post.
Local authorities must become involved to stop illegal loggers from preying on the protected forest, the activist said.
“If Cambodian authorities don’t allow Thai trucks to enter Cambodia, then they can’t transport the charcoal back to Thailand,” he said.
A forest activist who also declined to be named for safety reasons told RFA that an increasing number of trees have been cleared from the protected forest in Samlot to make charcoal.
Those who sell the charcoal transport it in three to five 15-ton trucks two to three times a week to Thailand, he said.
A community activist, who declined to be named, said local villagers also sold charcoal made from logs from protected areas of forest to Thai businessmen.
He said he had seen three to four trucks daily loaded with charcoal heading to Thailand.
“I have informed that district governor to take action, but there have been no measures taken so far,” he said.
More than a year
But one officer at a local nongovernmental organization said that trucks had been exporting coal through a checkpoint in Samlot without any interference by border authorities for more than a year, according to the report in The Phnom Penh Post.
Chan Socheat, an operational officer at the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, a foundation funded by American actress Angelina Jolie, told the newspaper that 40-80 metric tonnes (44-88 tons) of charcoal, made from trees logged inside protected areas of community forests in Samlot district, have been illegally exported to Thailand over the last year.
Ing Saorith, governor of Samlot district, acknowledged the existence of the businesses, but said because they are family-based, and not commercial, they would not affect the forest significantly.
He said he was trying to prevent illegal logging.
“I always inform villagers not to cut trees in the forest to make charcoal, but the villagers still use tree branches to make it,” he said.
Yin Mengly, Battambang’s provincial coordinator, said the business was illegal if villagers who participated in it did not have proper paperwork.
He urged local authorities to resolve the issue to prevent further logging.
“There should be a culture of local authorities talking with the community in order to prevent logging,” Yin Mengly said.
Illegal charcoal exports have occurred in other parts of the country.
Charcoal producers representing 100 families in Banteay Ampil district of northwest Cambodia's Oddar Meanchey province called on authorities there in January 2014 to intervene in the illegal export business, The Phnom Penh Post reported.
They had accused border police of extorting money from charcoal sellers and colluding with Thai brokers to smuggle charcoal to Thailand in what they said was a 60-ton-a-day illegal export business, the report said.
A checkpoint director, however, denied the allegations and said there were no charcoal exports to Thailand.
Reported by Hum Chamroeun of RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.