After watching trucks haul timber from the site for more than three years, villagers who have lived around the forest for generations – some of whom have been involved in land-grabbing disputes against the firm – find it hard to see how Think Biotech’s motives differ from the logging companies who came before.
Stacks
of timber sit in a large lumberyard belonging to Think Biotech in
Kratie province’s Kampong Cham commune last week. Vannrith Rong
Seeds of destruction?
At Think Biotech, reforestation starts every morning to the
buzz of chainsaws. Workers feed logs into the company’s sawmill, while
excavators dump loads of timber into the surrounding lumberyard, which
stretches for hundreds of metres.
Behind the lumberyard the most mature acacia trees, already several metres high, overshadow the nearby newer saplings.
Beyond lies an ash-covered expanse of land, littered with uprooted
trees and piled-up hewn timber. Looming behind and between are the
remnants of the tall, natural forest, vulnerable and exposed.
But Think Biotech’s concession isn’t an economic land concession
(ELC). It’s a joint large-scale "reforestation" project with the
government, which granted it 34,000 hectares – over three times the
limit for ELCs – between the Mekong River and Prey Lang forest,
stretching from Kratie province to neighbouring Stung Treng.
On an afternoon in June 2012, rice farmer Sam Nou watched a ferry
deliver bulldozers and excavators across the Mekong to his remote
village in Kratie’s Kampong Cham commune.
“I thought they’d come to build a road for our community,” Nou, a
member of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN), recalled last week
outside his wooden-stilted home.
“But it was not like that . . . They started clearing near the bank almost immediately to build an acacia nursery.”
In the name of reforestation, Think Biotech, a subsidiary of weapons
and explosives manufacturer Hanwha Corporation, one of South Korea’s
largest conglomerates, has cleared and logged vast tracts of timberland
on the edge of Prey Lang forest since its arrival.
The company replants primarily acacia trees, though it says up to 10 species will eventually be cultivated.
Think Biotech plans to convert the land into a plantation, with 15
2,000-hectare plots capable of generating 600,000 cubic metres of
industrial timber for annual sale, returns from which will be split
between the company and the government.
After watching trucks haul timber from the site for more than three
years, villagers who have lived around the forest for generations – some
of whom have been involved in land-grabbing disputes against the firm –
find it hard to see how Think Biotech’s motives differ from the logging
companies who came before.
“It is a contradiction. Their real activity is destroying, not
reforestation – it’s logging and destroying Cambodia’s natural
resources,” said villager and PLCN member Chan Pak, 65.
“I am afraid there will be no more forest for the next generation.”
Machinery
moves logs around at the Think Biotech lumber yard, which is flanked by
newly-planted acacia trees (behind), in Kratie province last week. Pha Lina
What is a forest?
Between 2001 and 2014, Cambodia experienced the fastest deforestation rate in the world, according to Global Forest Watch data.
The deforestation occurred disproportionately within Cambodia’s more than 2 million hectares of ELCs, according to a paper published last year in the science journal Nature.
Satellite data show that total forest cover in Cambodia has fallen
from 72 per cent in 1973 to 48 per cent in 2014, according to research by Open Development Cambodia. Only 16.5 per cent of that is dense forest.
But the government maintains that forest cover is actually
increasing, and now sits at about 57 per cent – close to a 60 per cent
target for 2030, figures it submitted to 2015 Paris Climate Conference.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries counts the
increasing number of private plantations in ELCs – often filled with
rubber and acacia trees – as “forest cover”. So does the United Nations
Food and Agriculture Organization.
As such, the ministry proclaimed in 2014 that despite ongoing
logging, more than 100,000 hectares of forest cover had been added since
2008.
But projects like Think Biotech, says ecological economist Arnim
Scheidel, are not reforesting. They are converting diverse landscapes
into monoculture economic forests, where benefits flow primarily to the
owners, rather than to locals, whose livelihoods, which depend on the
land, are often destroyed.
- Tree cover (2000)
- Forest cover loss (2000-2014)
- Infrared (2000)
- Infrared (2014)
Satellite data reveals the extent of plantation land within the Think Biotech reforestation project. Daniel Nass
In a paper published this month, Scheidel and Cambodia-based
anthropologist Courtney Work argue the project fits into a trend in
which green initiatives of questionable environmental and social impact
are established in developing countries in the name of countering
climate change.
They are often registered as Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM), an
international framework for carbon-reducing projects set up under the
Kyoto Protocol that enables the sale of carbon credits.
“One of the drivers of these types of projects is this climate-change crisis discourse,” said Scheidel, in a recent interview.
“These discourses have been mobilised to get a large amount of land.”
“Solutions that were unpopular become normal again. You need
immediate solutions and . . . you don’t look at the impacts,” he said.
While Think Biotech has not registered as a CDM, government
sub-decrees describing and approving the “sustainable” project signed in
December 2010 cite its potential to become one.
The company will “[convert] degraded forest into land full of timber resources”, the sub-decree states.
Further, its work will put an end to forest clearance, slash-and-burn
activities and illegal logging, and stop – or at least reduce – soil
erosion, the sub-decree continues.
The documents also say that the plantation will conserve biodiversity
and involve local stakeholders, enhance technical knowledge and provide
jobs in the community.
Cheng Kimsun, head of the Forestry Administration, did not respond to
a request to discuss the project or say whether or not it will be
registered as a CDM.
Sum Thy, director of the Environment Ministry’s climate change
department, said the current low price of carbon meant it would probably
not.
Environmental expert Dr Alan Ziegler says though it’s “plausible”
that a monoculture plantation could match or surpass a natural forest in
carbon storage, it would be nearly impossible to estimate without a
huge investment in time and destructive sampling.
“Likely in the end, the increase, if any, would not be large,”
Ziegler, a professor at the University of Singapore, said via email.
Furthermore, he added that any increase would not be large enough to
outweigh losses: of biodiversity, soil and nutrients, changes in
hydrology – and of livelihoods.
On top of the ecological damage, Work and Scheidel argue that the
vast tracts of land required to turn a profit from tree plantations are
usually already occupied, farmed or forested, sparking conflict between
companies and villagers.
In developing countries like Cambodia, corruption and weak
institutions make monitoring difficult and meaningful consultation with
those affected by such projects rare, they argue.
In Think Biotech’s case, Work and Scheidel, researchers for the
International Institute of Social Studies, emphasise the lack of
community consultation and studies assessing the current land use
against future alternatives.
They concluded that the project provides no evidence of environmental
benefits, while decimating vast swathes of previously rich forest.
And then there’s the timber, a chance to recoup some of the huge investment required to fund plantations, they say.
“If you want to cover start-up costs, either get a good loan or a good forest,” said Scheidel.
Reforestation
Think Biotech currently employs about 1,000 people at the site, though the number fluctuates.
Those doing chainsaw work, wood gathering and planting earn $154 a
month, according to Khai Vanda, 26, a former employee and the son of
community representative Sam Nou. Working at the sawmill yields $180.
A
former employee of Think Biotech, Khai Vanda, points at a large fire
earlier this month in Kratie’s Kampong Cham commune where the company
has employed slash and burn techniques to clear land. Pha Lina
Speaking on the condition of anonymity via telephone, a 27-year-old
current employee estimated the company fells between 150 to 200 trees
per day.
He said the timber, some of it high-grade wood, was taken to the
Tbong Khmum facility for steaming – a common procedure in furniture
making – two or three times a week.
The employee also accused the company of illegally logging within Prey Lang forest.
“We can’t control [the illegal logging] . . . we just want to control
our own contract and transport,” Seo said. “We are doing everything
legally.”
He said the company sold 4,000 cubic metres of timber last year,
locally and to South Korea and China. Only about 10 per cent of the wood
at the site was first-grade, he said.
Hanwha Corporation
The company made about $700,000 in revenue on an investment of more than $7 million in 2015, he added.
Founded in 1952 as Korea Explosives, Hanwha Corporation has grown
into South Korea’s seventh-largest chaebol, or family-owned
conglomerate.
The biggest are Samsung, Hyundai and LG.Its interests around the
globe include mines, auto parts, chemical plants, solar power and
shipping, though a major component of its business centres on weapons:
from ammunition and grenades to guided missile systems and unmanned
drones.
Speaking at Think Biotech’s Tuol Kork headquarters, Seo and director
Chung Hwanki, said that the company set up the project in 2011,
following a 2008 MoU signed between Cambodia and the South Korean
government to attract investment in reforestation.
A
few scattered trees last week stand in a section of scorched land
belonging to Think Biotech that was previously a lush forest in Kratie
province. Pha Lina
Like the government, they argued that the tree plantation will increase forest cover.
The company will harvest one plot each year after about 15 years of
growth, in what they called a “sustainable rotational system”. This will
take the pressure for timber resources off of protected areas, they
said.
Chung said an assessment of the site – logged by two companies
previously under now-scrapped logging concessions – found the average
forest cover was low, at just 30 to 40 cubic metres of timber per
hectare.
Although, Scheidel counters that satellite data suggests dense tree
cover across much of the site, particularly in the yet-to-be-cleared
north.
“After we plant the trees, we change it to about 300 to 400 cubic
metres [per hectare] of forest cover, around 10 times more,” said Chung,
who also stressed community forests within the concession were being
protected.
“The company and the government have to develop that area to make
some profit, [and] human beings have to use wood, but how can that be
supplied in an environmentally friendly way?
“That’s our approach in our area . . . to plant trees in an environmentally friendly way.
“Of course, we also accept that, in terms of biodiversity, even if we
plant even 10 species, there will be less than the many kinds that were
there before . . . but we can supply timber to the Cambodian market,
more than 400,000 cubic metres. If we supply that, people can use this
wood from plantation trees [and not] the natural trees.”
Community action
Srei Srim, 34, looks out from his family’s basic wooden house onto
his small scrubby plot, hemmed in by the concession on all sides.
“Before, I could hunt for wildlife around, but after they came, it’s done; I could not hunt anymore,” he says.
“We used to catch fish, turtles and monitors, but with the fish – no more. They filled in the pond.”
A few hundred villagers have staged protests, while the community has
submitted three petitions to the state and NGOs, demanding a return of
land they used for rice farming and forest containing their resin trees,
an essential income source for many.
Villagers
from Kampong Cham commune hold signs at Achen pagoda in Kratie province
late last year during a protest against the clearing of forests by
Think Biotech. Photo supplied
Standing next to a resin tree like one of the 500 he taps around the site, Kong Socheat, 31, said he was concerned.
“The trees are my livelihood,” he said. “I’m afraid . . . the company will probably cut it this year”.
Late last year, the NGO Forum took up the villagers’ case.
Since then the company has given back 2,000 hectares around people’s
homes via a demarcation process, though anxiety remains about the
decision’s permanence.
Not all villagers are upset, however.
Suong Horm, chief of Achen village in Kampong Cham commune, defended the plantation, which he said brought jobs.
He said that claims of 100 affected families had been settled, with
land swaps arranged for 10 families and compensation provided for resin
trees.
Kratie Deputy Provincial Governor Var Thorn also dismissed criticism
of the project, which had also planted rosewood and teak trees, he
noted.
“The granted land is not Prey Lang,” Var said.
“It is just useless forest with trees the size of wrists and ankles.
[They] clear the dead forest. The government does not allow it to clear
actual forest.”
Think Biotech did not at first undertake an environmental impact
assessment (EIA) for their project, but started one in 2015, after the
Environment Ministry changed its policy.
Without a proper study of the baseline – what would have been if the
plantation was not built – and the alternatives, there can be no
argument that people or the environment are better off, said Scheidel,
the researcher.
“Even if some areas are degraded, supporting community patrols would provide a much better forest in 10 years,” he said.
Nou last week led reporters to the western boundary marker of Think
Biotech’s concession, which marks the beginning of Prey Lang forest.
Nearby, dozens of resin trees, oozing the black substance, dot a
dried up riverbank, under a canopy of leaves that keeps the ground cool
and shady all year round.
Much of the now-cleared landscape was once like this, Nou said. “How can you decimate a forest for money?” he asked.
“Money is printable, but a forest isn’t.”
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