Illegal Logging Has Become More Violent Than Ever
Criminal loggers and land snatchers are committing more murders around the world, but they almost always escape justice.
A Cambodian forestry department ranger patrols Bokor National Park for illegal loggers. Violence associated with illegal logging is on the rise. Photograph by Patrick Brown, Panos
National Geographic |
After a productive day—they’d encountered a gang of illegal loggers
and confiscated six chain saws—the four patrollers in Cambodia’s Preah
Vihear Protected Forest strung up their hammocks and settled in for the
night. Come morning, they’d return to the nearest Forestry
Administration station, just 2.5 miles away.
But at 1 a.m. on November 7, 2015, two intruders slipped into the
campsite. They approached the hammock where Sieng Darong, 47, a leader
of the Forestry Administration’s law enforcement team, lay sleeping,
drew their weapons, and fired two shots—one into Darong’s head, another
into his throat.
Sab Yoh, 29, a provincial police officer, was next, receiving a shot in the stomach.
The commotion woke Phet Sophoan, 30, a member of the border police,
who leaped from his hammock just in time to feel a sudden, searing pain
as a bullet grazed his buttock. Still, he managed to drag himself about
300 feet away, where he hid in the brush.
After the killers’ shadowy silhouettes retreated, Sophoan located the
fourth member of the group, Koem Chenda, a soldier with Intervention
Brigade 9’s Battalion 391. Chenda had escaped unharmed. They could hear
Yoh’s groans but decided not to attempt a rescue. “We were afraid that
we would be shot dead if we went back,” Sophon would tell the Phnom Penh Post. “I felt sorry for [Yoh], but I couldn’t help him.”
Hours later, when Chenda led patrolmen back to the campsite, Yoh was dead.
It was the latest in an ongoing series of violent crimes associated with illegal logging, a global contraband industry that accounts for up to 10 percent of all timber trade.
Killings and Disappearances by Month
NG STAFF
SOURCE: GLOBAL WITNESS
NG STAFF
SOURCE: GLOBAL WITNESS
Impacts caused by those crimes have a global reach. Illegal logging is the leading cause of forest degradation worldwide and contributes to global warming. In 2013, for example, it resulted in an estimated 190 million tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The practice also threatens
critically endangered species, including orangutans and Siberian
tigers, as well as local people, with impacts ranging from loss of
livelihoods and land to endangerment to their lives.
Global Witness, a nonprofit organization dedicated to exposing
corruption and environmental abuse, with offices in London and
Washington, D.C., has confirmed the killings of more than 950
forest defenders between 2002 and 2014—activists, rangers, and
indigenous people. During the past five years the murder rate has risen
to two a week.
The tally is certainly an underestimate. “There are still huge gaps
of information, because a lot of killings aren’t reported,” says Billy
Kyte, a campaigner for Global Witness. Dependable data are lacking for
many countries, such as Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe,
Myanmar, China, as well as Central Asian nations.
Illegal logging is irresistible because of the high prices luxury
timbers like rosewood and mahogany fetch on the international market. A
cubic meter of rosewood, for instance, can sell for $50,000 in China, and in Thailand a two-meter-long plank goes for $5,000.
Cambodian forest
rangers cross a river during a patrol. Last November, illegal loggers
killed two patrollers in a protected forest. Photograph by Patrick Brown, Panos
Windfall illicit profits have spurred a logging frenzy in numerous
countries, including Thailand, where Thai nationals and Cambodians sneak
into national parks near the Thai-Cambodia border. They sometimes carry
AK-47s, and they often get into altercations with Thai forest rangers.
13 Years of Killings and Disappearances of Environmental Defenders
At least 991 activists, forest rangers, or landowners have been killed in illegal logging related crimes, according to Global Witness. Data as of January 5, 2016
“We’d like to see the government step up and treat this as a national
security issue—which it is,” said Anak Pattanavibool, country director
for WCS's Thailand program. “Unknown armed groups of Cambodians are
coming into our country and smuggling out illegally cut trees.” Between
2008 and 2015, according to Pattanavibool, 54 Thai park rangers were
killed, and 61 wounded.
Government Complicity
Global Witness began keeping its grim statistics after Chut Wutty,
an environmental investigator, activist, and reporter in Cambodia, was
shot by a military police officer in 2012. Wutty, who was accompanied by
two journalists, had been escorting the reporters to logging sites when
he was killed.
His death made international headlines, but, according to Global Witness, within days the government dropped its investigation into his murder. Since 2010, three other journalists
in Cambodia have also been found killed; two were reporting on illegal
logging, the other on illegal fisheries. In November 2015, Reporters
Without Borders, a nonprofit organization based in Paris, named Cambodia the most dangerous country for an environmental reporter.
In the days following Darong and Yoh’s murder, six illegal loggers
with alleged military ties, and a soldier, were arrested. No charges
have yet been made. According to Steve Mecinski, a law enforcement
technical advisor for the World Wildlife Fund-Cambodia, “This matter
becomes rather complex as media sources suggest high government
officials and authorities’ involvement.”
According to the Phnom Penh Post,
“the military is well known in Preah Vihear to be responsible for
logging and poaching in protected areas, according to multiple sources.”
Cambodian rangers monitor Bokor National Park’s forests. Illegal logging accounts for up to 10 percent of global timber trade. Photograph by Patrick Brown, Panos
A source in Cambodia who asked not to be named out of concern about
safety says it’s widely accepted, but rarely discussed, that rogue
Cambodian military units are heavily involved in illegal logging
throughout the country. “Military-connected cartels linked to illegal
logging crimes operate with impunity,” the source told National
Geographic.
The Cambodian Ministry of National Defense and the National Press
Room did not respond to requests for comment about these allegations.
Funds generated from those activities—estimated to be worth hundreds
of millions of dollars a year—are said by the source to support the
ruling party.
“In deeply corrupt countries such as Russia, Laos, and Cambodia,
illicit timber extraction has become an important part of the state
management system,” says Denis Smirnov, a consultant with more than 20
years experience in forest conservation, including ten years as head of
WWF-Russia’s Amur-Heilong Ecoregion forest program. He now specializes
in illegal logging and deforestation in Cambodia. “When government
agencies are involved, you’re not protected.”
Killings and Disappearances by Country
NG STAFF
SOURCE: GLOBAL WITNESS
SOURCE: GLOBAL WITNESS
For example, in the Bajo Aguan land conflict in Honduras, in which
environmental campaigners clashed with companies converting forests to
palm oil plantations, between 90 and 120 protestors were killed from
2010 to 2013. According to Human Rights Watch,
only seven of those deaths resulted in a trial, and none ended in
convictions. Globally, “the vast majority of these crimes appear to go
unpunished,” says Billy Kyte.
Kyte uses the word “appear” because information is thin. “There’s no
available data on impunity rates, as this is a research task that would
require global networks of people getting information directly from
prosecutors’ offices in every country,” he says. “It is a herculean task
to do this globally.”
Nevertheless, with pro bono help from in-country law firms, Kyte and
colleagues are working to identify best practices for ensuring
accountability for killings in Honduras as well as Colombia, Brazil,
Peru, Costa Rica, and Uruguay.
For now, criminals can be brazen. In December 2015, illegal loggers dragged mock-up coffins
bearing the names of Peruvian forestry inspectors through the streets
of Iquitos—a spectacle meant to send a warning following recent
crackdowns involving shipments of Peruvian Amazon timber to the U.S.
And earlier last year, Darong, one of the two Cambodians murdered in
Preah Vihear Protected Forest last November, received a call from the
soldier who was later arrested in connection with his shooting. The man
had said he would shoot Darong if he continued to confiscate illegal logging equipment.
“This is a very dangerous job,” Darong said at the time. “I’m worried
that it will take the death of a patrol team member before the dangers
of our work will be taken seriously.”
Targeting Community Leaders
Indigenous people who protest illegal logging or seizures of their
land are frequent victims. Global Witness found that of the 116 people
killed defending territory in 2014, 47 were from indigenous communities.
The criminals often target community leaders—a strategy aimed at
spreading fear and silencing people. In September 2015 in the
Philippines, the paramilitary group Magahat-Bagani Forces allegedly set
fire to a community building and told residents to leave or face a massacre. According to numerous media sources and human rights groups, Magahat-Bagani and other paramilitary groups work with the Philippines’ military to acquire indigenous lands for mining.
The Observers, an eyewitness site run by France 24, an international news television channel based in Paris, reports
that most villagers escaped unharmed, but according to residents, men
from Magahat-Bagani singled out three villagers, including a teacher, a
tribal leader, and an indigenous rights activist, all of whom were
involved with protesting conversion of local lands for mining.
The schoolteacher was later found dead in one of his classrooms, while Observers, Global Witness, and other news sources say that the other two men were gunned down in front of community members. Soldiers from the military’s 36th infantry battalion were allegedly in town that day but are said to have done nothing to stop the violence.
These Cambodian
rangers are on the lookout for timber thieves. Between 2002 and 2014,
criminals killed more than 950 forest defenders around the world. Photograph by Patrick Brown, Panos
Such crimes are not confined to the Philippines. In Latin America
especially, says Jeremy Radachowsky, WCS’s director of Mesoamerica and
the Western Caribbean, “park staff become afraid to push for
enforcement, prosecutors become afraid of investigating, and even judges
are threatened and intimidated. In many cases, threats are also
combined with some kind of bribe, making it very difficult for someone
to say no.”
In Brazil’s eastern Amazon rain forest, one leader of the Ka’apor indigenous community recently told the nonprofit group Survival International,
“There have been constant death threats against us [by illegal loggers]
for a long time. Now they’re even killing to intimidate us. We don’t
know what to do, because we have no protection. The state does nothing.”
But Mônica Machado Carneiro, an expert from the press office of FUNAI,
the Brazilian governmental body responsible for indigenous peoples’
affairs, said in an email that FUNAI and other government institutions
are aware of the situation and are actively working to reduce illegal
logging and prevent crimes against indigenous people.
The U.S., Europe, and Australia
have enacted legislation aimed at combating illegal timber imports, but
other countries with large appetites for timber—including Japan and China—have weak provisions. In China, for instance, Global Witness reports
that the government is not playing an active role in monitoring
companies working in the forest sector and does not have legislation
specifically prohibiting the import of illegal timber.
“So far, I don’t think there’s enough pressure to get China to care
about this,” Pattanavibool says. “It's causing serious problems in other
countries, but they don’t see that link.”
“Without international and market pressure, nothing will change,” Smirnov adds.
For now, individual forest defenders often remain one of the only
obstacles between illegal loggers and stolen trees. “They’re doing all
of humanity a huge favor by putting their lives on the line,”
Radachowsky says.
In Cambodia, Phet Sophoan says that as soon as his wound heals, he
plans to return to the forest. Likewise, Yuri Melini, an activist in
Guatemala who has been shot seven times, continues his work ensuring the
rights of indigenous communities.
These courageous people know the risks. “I am afraid, I have fear,
but my fear won’t make me be quiet,” José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva, an
activist in Brazil, said in a TedX talk
in 2011, shortly before masked gunmen fatally shot him and his wife.
“As long as I have the power to walk, I will be denouncing all of those
who are harming the forest.”
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