Sale of Cambodia’s Endangered Wood: Illegal but not Invisible

All over Cambodia’s northeast, in guesthouses and coffee shops across a provincial swath covering Preah Vihear, Ratanakiri and Kratie, you can see them – heavy chairs and tables polished to a high gleam, in colors ranging from honey to deep, brick red. Much has been made of a taste for Cambodia’s endangered luxury wood by in China and Vietnam, a taste that’s reached forests and ELCs nearly all the way to the Lao border. Less is said of Cambodia’s own consumption, or why, in a country where the harvest and selling of rare timber species is completely illegal, fine furniture is displayed and sold virtually everywhere from wealthy villas to roadside restaurants.

In a coffee shop not far from the market in Stung Treng, red-brown wooden tabletops are stacked against the wall. A price sticker on one marks the cost, which the owner confirms: $1700. “I have about one customer a month,” says Mr. Z, who prefers his name not be used. “They come to my coffee shop and ask to buy the tables. Many are from Vietnam – some, though, are from Cambodia.”

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