Rosewood processing site raided

[geovalin]

Phak Seangly

A timber processing mill has been found near the Thai-Cambodian border containing more than 700 kilograms of rosewood, Forestry Administration officers said yesterday.

Oddar Meanchey’s provincial forestry director, Tieng David, said that his staff raided a site about 400 metres from the border on Wednesday after illegal rosewood processing was reported in Konkriel commune, but the culprits escaped.

Officers reportedly seized some 500 logs and are currently on the hunt for their unidentified owner. Samroang town Forestry Administration chief Mao Borimin said they did not yet know the timber’s origin, but noted the value of even small amounts of rosewood given its current scarcity.

read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rosewood-processing-site-raided

[geovalin]

Trees ‘felled for pepper’

Fri, 11 September 2015

Phak Seangly

Batambang's Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary is being illegally logged for pepper posts, with brokers bribing environment officers to transport the timber, residents and NGO workers have said.

According to a community member who asked not to be named, while dead trees had previously been used to produce the posts for plantations, the past month has seen a surge in the logging and shredding of resilient Pchek trees.

“Brokers are buying and hauling them out at night on home-made trucks, with about five loads a night,” he said.

Chan Socheat, an operational officer from the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, said that officials were taking bribes.

read more: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/trees-felled-pepper