Illegal logging in Cambodia

Map of Cambodia, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

Illegally logged timber transportation, public domain on Wikimedia Commons

From the early 1970s to the mid-1990s, the forest cover in Cambodia decreased sharply from 75% to less than 35% ^[6], mainly due to the illegal, but officially sanctioned logging, by the Royal Cambodian Army Forces and Khmer Rouge. ^[7]. To be specific, legal logging accounts for 33% of logging activity and illegal logging accounts for 2/3 of the logging.^[6]. In 1997, 2,024,000-3,155,000 m3, or 70% of the total harvest were recorded as illegally logged. In terms of profitability, illegally logged wood earns USD120 per m3, 2.4 times more than that in the legal concession lands. .^[3]. Cambodia first brought the term "conflict timber" to international attention. Conflict timber refers to the financing of conflict through the harvest and sale of timber or conflict emerging as a result of competition over timber or other forest resources. The remnant groups of the Khmer Rouge sold large stands of forest to purchase arms to continue political struggle.^[6].

It is generally agreed that the Cambodian State is an authoritarian one-party state and Hun Sen and his networks are in full control. The predatory state apparatus is founded on coercive patronage networks between business elites, the prime minister, the CPP and government officials to benefit a minority of elites.^[8]. Powerful individual actors such as the military, police, high-policy makers and politicians are thus highly complicit in illegal logging and timber trade.

Framing the Problem: A Forestry Perspective

Reboredo studied and reported on different causes of illegal logging such as poverty, weak governance and the absence of sustainable forest management, though these causes are not universally applicable to all the cases where illegal logging is found. ^[7].The illegal logging in Cambodia is a mixture of all the above-mentioned reasons and others.

Political background

Beginning with low-level cross-border raids and soon escalating into full-fledged war in December 1978, Vietnam and Cambodia had a warring period that lasted until 1991. Having experienced two decades of warfare and a Western-led economic embargo and a ruling authority-initiated genocide of a fifth of its population, Cambodia in the late 1980s was in a transition period. With reference to forests, forests were transmitted from Khmer Rouge-controlled territory into timber production^[9]

Illegal logging on (conflicting) concession land systems

The actual management of the production forests take place through concession agreements with concessionaires. 63% was allocated as concession lands and some concessions even overlap. In Ratanakiri, for example, the combined allocation of protected areas, forestry and agricultural concessions exceeds 30% of the total land. Even national level allocations cover 102% of the land area in provinces.^[10] The land overlaps might be partly attributed to a lack of vertical and horizontal communication among authorities at different levels. Even for the legal concessionaires, they may be readily evicted by overseas competitors. With the absence of or insufficiently executed law on the land, ambiguous land tenure claims as above-mentioned are normative. And in most cases where there are two claimants to land, it is always the more powerful party - the party with the covert or overt support of the State - that wins the battle.^[6] Illegally cut logs found stockpiled in the concession areas could be used with ad hoc permits or licenses, or sale of confiscated logs through auctions. The Collection permits offer an efficient way of collecting revenue from illegally cut logs. In general, this system has left loopholes for the occurrence of illegal logging. ^[3].

Weak governance

According to Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI), Cambodia ranks at 21 out of 100 in 2015, ranking 150th among the 168 countries surveyed. There is scant or no budget openness. ^[11]. As timber logging, transportation and trade require infrastructure, capital and coordinated skills, powerful stakeholders allied to government officials, either in the form of the military and other security forces, are better placed than other constituency groups to leverage resources and are almost always involved in the exploitation of timber for revenues. ^[6] In November 1995, 30 mainly foreign logging companies, were granted 6.3 million hectares of forest as concessions, which is three times the area that can support commercial logging. ^[6]. The revenues from these operations almost entirely bypass the national budget and represent an absolute loss to the country.

Framing the Problem: Layering Perspectives

The description above describes illegal logging in Cambodia from the perspective of a forestry student. In this section we welcome contributions from other perspectives. Those interested in contributing to this case study may use the following questions as a guide:

1. How do scholars and professionals outside of forestry conceptualize the practice of illegal logging in Cambodia?
2. What are other possible ways of framing this problem?
3. What special expertise, resources, or theoretical orientations might others bring to help us understand this phenomenon better?

The remote borderlands are generally isolated from the central state provinces and are generally regarded as marginalized sites of lawlessness. The Cambodian- Lao borderlands is an isolated locale rich in natural resources but poor in basic infrastructure. With geopolitical insignificance and inaccessibility of national capital flows, it has become a hotspot for illegal cross-border logging of luxury timbers. ^[8]. This area was marked as a site of conflicts and political turmoil when Cambodia and Vietnam were at war and illegal logging was used to support the war and the purchase of weapons.

Sekong village in Stung Treng Province, about 40km south of Attapeu and Champassak Provinces in Laos, is close to Cambodia’s largest national park - Virachey National Park. Stung Treng Province has 900 villagers and many have been involved in the illegal cross-border logging of luxury rosewood timber such as Siamese rosewood. ^[8] Compared to traditional income-earning activities such as resin-collection, fishing and hunting, much higher returns (US$300-3,000 per trip) from logging rosewood are paid to villagers by Cambodian timber traders and soldiers. In addition, transporting these illegally logged luxury timbers offers much higher taxes by traditional communities to the Cambodian border checkpoints, and offer opportunities for corruption to the soldiers and officers at the border whose salary is only US$25 per month^[8].

Implications: A Forestry Perspective

Environmental

Illegal logging leads to serious environmental problems such as biodiversity degradation, carbon stock reduction, reduced water quality and the outbreak of natural disasters among others. Once Illegal logging occurs at a large destructive scale, it leads to forest conversion and an alarming rate of deforestation and forest degradation. As some illegal logging occurs also in the protected areas, rare plants and animals may become threatened too.^[7]

Deforestation and forest degradation have become the greatest source of forest carbon emissions. Sasaki found that carbon stock in production forest declined from 130.5 MgC ha-1 in 1993 to 115.2 MgC ha-1 in 2002. ^[12], contributing to the increasing carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Economic

Illegal logging generates a large amount of benefits for the few elites as well as provides secretive livelihood opportunities for involved community members. Compared to the limited economic benefits for national or local stakeholders, more negative economic implications pose great challenges both for the nation and other sectors. As illustrated before, the revenue from illegal logging often bypasses the national exchequer and thus cannot be allocated for education, medical care and other public sectors. Illegally logged timber discourages sustainable management and sustainable logging practices, resulting in unfair competition with other companies that are legally logging. Illegal logging results in negative externalities. What is more, the local communities or even local authorities have not acquired a fair amount of the 'economic rent' ^[7] and Payment for Ecosystem(PES), while they lose accessibility and benefit rights to forest (ABS).

Cultural

Forests serve cultural and spiritual purposes. Cambodia is a Buddhism-believing country and Buddhists believe trees are like our parents and that protecting trees means to eliminate the suffering of human beings. Some monks in Cambodia conserved the biggest community forest and won the UNDP Equator Prize for creating a best practice for biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation.^[13]

Social

Mulcahy & Boissière stated that 80% of the rural poor depend on forests and agricultural land for their subsistence and livelihoods. Forest resources contribute between 30-42% of total household income for the rural people^[14]. Illegal logging is destructive for the forest and harmful for the communities for whom the forest provides a livelihood, especially for women. Cambodia has been implementing REDD+ projects which are aimed to reduce deforestation and forest degradation. However, studies show that communities living in areas covered by REDD+ projects are being deprived of the accessibility to forests, that livestock husbandry interferes with their traditional way of life and livelihood opportunities. As such, conflicts between wood industry concerns and local communities are prevalent. As shown in the video (see above), the World Food Program estimated that approximately 3 million communities are living within 30 km of logging concessions and are severely affected by the illegal logging ^[15]. If they lose both the land for rice production and the resin trees inherited from their parents, they may find it impossible to feed themselves. In the future their children and grandchildren will similarly suffer.

Implications: Layering Perspectives

The description above describes the implications from illegal logging in Cambodia from the perspective of a forestry student. In this section we welcome contributions from other perspectives. Those interested in contributing to this case study may use the following questions as a guide:

1. How could someone from a different discipline or profession add to the implications above?
2. What other implications become apparent when illegal logging is viewed through the lens of other disciplines and professions?
3. What special expertise, resources, or theoretical orientations might others bring to help us better understand the implications associated with illegal logging in Cambodia?

The state forest authority should aim for efficiency, cost effectiveness, transparency and equability and have an auditing system. The government should carefully guide the preparation for establishing a chain of custody certification system and timber legality assurance system to ensure that future wood processing is based on legally harvested timber, and that processed timber from Cambodia can be sustainably exported. The government should work out a system to ensure the timber processing industry is in balance with its source of supply. .^[16]. Three neighboring countries -- Thailand, Laos and Vietnam -- are currently engaged in negotiation processes of the Voluntary Partnership Agreement under EU-FLEGT^[17]. The Cambodian government could also consider to engage in a similar international commitment.

The top agenda for the forest authority is to reform its land system, underline law compliance, and implement the Community Forestry Project, imparting communities with Access and Benefit Sharing Rights (ABS) and to solve the conflicts between the local community, forest management authority and concession holders. The timber industries and enterprises should have credible Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitments and obtain a Social License to Operate (SLO) and strengthen the concept of product of origins. Many international non-governmental organizations like the Environment Investigation Agency, Global Witness, Greenpeace and TRAFFIC should be supported so that they can continue to act as watchdogs over the illegal logging, processing, transportation and trade and provide capacity building programs for law enforcement agencies.

Recommendations: A Forestry Perspective

Illegal logging in Cambodia is a complex issue shaped by different political, economic and social factors at the national and international levels. Due to scant or insufficiently recorded data from the national authorities, illegally logged timber may be underestimated at certain periods. Illegal timber harvesting has become a major threat to deforestation and forest degradation in Cambodia. Though illegal logging has brought significant economic benefits to the political, military and business elites and even to local communities, the negative environmental, political, social and cultural implications cannot be neglected. Solving this issue needs long-term joint efforts from the national and international communities and requires positive changes to the current legal and operational systems.

At the national level, strengthening forest law enforcement, improving forest governance and improving the land use system are the top priorities. At the international level, those countries and industries who wish to ‘offset’ their logging damage through carbon market and REDD projects should reconsider this issue to avoid ‘leakage’. Instead, they should contribute to establish a well-monitored chain of custody or supply chain of legally-logged timber. As Cambodia is still one of the least developed countries whose economic development depends highly on natural resources, corruption in Cambodia cannot be halted within a short period of time and international timber demand is still robustly high. There is still a long way to go to alleviate or halt the current trajectory of illegal logging.

Recommendations: Layering Perspectives

What recommendations might someone from another discipline or profession make to combat the issue of illegal logging in Cambodia? Examples might include:

• Law
• Geography
• Environmental Science
• Social Justice
• Economics
• History
• Anthropology
• Philosophy