Despite government bravado, no slowdown in timber smuggling

[geovalin]

Mech Dara and Igor Kossov

Tbong Khmum, Kratie and Mondulkiri provinces

The anti-logging commission established in January by Prime Minister Hun Sen boasted in an April report that it had all but eliminated illegal logging and smuggling in the eastern provinces. Locals in the Kingdom’s east tell a vastly different story.

Interviews with NGOs, government institutions and more than 30 people from six different communities in Tbong Khmum, Kratie and Mondulkiri indicate that – thanks to rampant official corruption and spiking demand – smuggling has continued unabated, and could even be on the rise.

Small-time timber transporters, who either illegally log or pick up leftover wood, almost entirely support a shadowy bribe economy. Meanwhile, large timber trucks belonging to wealthier entrepreneurs remain untouched, and sometimes even get police escorts on their way to the Vietnam border, locals say.

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