Pepper business adds to Kingdom’s deforestation woes

[geovalin]

Mech Dara and Igor Kossov

While the luxury timber trade continues to eat away at Cambodia’s forests, there is another industry that poses a growing threat to the Kingdom’s trees: pepper farms.

Interviews with dozens of residents, local officials, conservation NGOs and experts in Mondulkiri, Kratie and Tbong Khmum provinces reveal that pepper farms are growing in popularity among those who can afford to create them.

The result, conservationists say, is nonluxury trees being indiscriminately cut down to be made into pepper stakes that are sold locally and in Vietnam.

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