Soldiers’ Forest Clearing Approaches Nature-Loving Monk’s Pagoda

[geovalin]

Monks and villagers say that a group of people purportedly hired by the military to cut down Kampong Speu’s Metta forest are continuing to destroy a densely forested area full of wildlife, and are now only about 200 meters from a pagoda inhabited by a nature-protecting monk. The area west of the pagoda had gibbons, small monkeys and peacocks, and its deforestation had left the animals homeless, lacking food and crying every day, the monk claimed on Wednesday.

 

Prom Thomacheat, who lives in the forest pagoda, alleged that people hired by Brigade 70 were cutting down trees and taking control there, reaching about 200 meters west of the pagoda. He said the loggers were cutting down trees near a hut being built for Vipassana meditation. The clearing activity was protected by armed guards, he added.

 

“No one dares to go there anymore because it is already occupied,” he said. Thomacheat expressed concern for wild animals that he claimed had no place to hide and cried day and night. Due to the lack of shelter, wild animals came to live in the pagoda because they had nothing to eat, he said, adding that he wondered why people wanted to destroy nature.

 

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