Cambodian villagers fear for future amid forest burning dispute: Special report
In the second part of a special series on deforestation in
Cambodia, Jack Board travels to an area where locals are upset that
forest trees are being cleared - to make way for a timber plantation.
Channel NewsAsia | 10 August 2016
KRATIE,
Cambodia: A lone wooden hut, standing on metre-high stilts, cuts a
lonely shape in the middle of a wasteland. It is an alien structure,
surrounded by scarred earth and disfigured, charred remnants of forest.
Next
to it, a sickly pool of tepid, scum-veiled water barely ripples in the
searing heat. In the air hangs the high-pitched buzzing of busy
chainsaws. More forest is being cleared - today and every day.
This
is Som No’s property in the heart of one of Cambodia’s largest
concessions, a “reforestation” project controlled by South Korean firm
Think Biotech.
“This land concession causes hardships. It affects
everything,” said the 56-year-old former soldier. He is part of the Prey
Lang Community Network, guardians of the forest who monitor the area to
protect against illegal activity.
“Our lives now are so miserable.”
A
densely forested swathe of land in the now largely protected Prey Lang,
meaning “our forest”, was handed over to the company in 2010, for
development as a designated plantation area.
While Cambodia has
exported vast amounts of timber, much of it illegal, over recent
decades, there is also growing appetite for wood domestically. Think
Biotech’s project is designed to answer the call.
“There
are so many huge construction building projects and housing projects in
Phnom Penh at the moment. It will be extended to the whole of country
in the near future,” Think Biotech director Peter Hwanki Chung told
Channel NewsAsia.
“If people just want to keep the forests, how can we supply this timber to people?”
The
premise is straightforward: Develop a sustainable forestry industry,
which can also help mitigate climate change and put an end to illegal
logging and slash-and-burn agriculture, which has left permanent scars
on Cambodia’s landscape. Put more simply, plant trees to cut down,
instead of clearing existing forest.
Chung predicts the project will eventually supply one-third of Cambodia’s timber needs annually.
But
the reality is far more complex. From Som’s perspective, tens of
thousands of hectares of valuable, generational forest will be
arbitrarily destroyed in order to develop such a project - threatening
not only the way of life for hundreds of families, but also their
health.
“We know some people don't like our company working in our
area and some people want to take issue with our company for their
various purposes,” Chung argued. “But, you also understand why this kind
of project is needed in Cambodia.”
'NO ILLEGAL THINGS’ HERE
Think
Biotech’s plantation is the first of its kind in Cambodia, where
deforestation levels have been among the world’s highest since 2000. And
answering the government’s call was how Chung described the investment
made by his company, which is a subsidiary of leading explosives and
weapons manufacturer Hanwha Corporation.
Chung argues that the
wood being harvested by his company is minimal and not valuable, and
that this land had been widely logged already by the government and a
Chinese company decades ago.
“Also, villagers had cut and
extracted valuable timber in an illegal way,” he said. “It's secondary
forest instead of a virgin area,” he added, explaining that this was one
of the reasons the government opened the specific area up for foreign
investment and development.
Locals say they have observed timber being trucked out of the
concession, initially in daylight before shifting to discrete operations
under the cover of darkness. The destination for the timber was
unknown [is to Vietnam, it adds value and sells to China], although Cambodia has banned timber exports in what the
government says is an attempt to stop black market smuggling to Vietnam.
“Now
the activity is less intensive and is secret,” said Thai Bunlieng, a
Prey Lang Forest patroller who works closely with Som No.
“This
month, we saw that the company secretly transported timbers out of
their concession on two different occasions in a total of 11 trucks –
five trucks at night and six trucks in the day time,” he said.
He accused locals of having ulterior motives to “get their hands on more land and timber illegally”.
“But we cannot allow it. We have a duty to protect this government estate land.”
He
also added that the project would result in “increased forest density
and “improve environment conditions”, which would eventually lead to
carbon credits from the United Nations.
However,
a 2016 study by the International Institute of Social Studies described
the project as “industrial slash-and-burn” and the “frontier of
deforestation”.
The authors argued that converting diverse
primary forest into an industrial forest does not serve to combat
climate change; rather, it worsens the issue by reducing carbon stocks
and increasing local temperatures.
It is a calculated cost,
according to Cambodia’s environment minister Say Samal [Say Sam Ol] who, while
conceding a loss of biodiversity, asserts that the country needs
projects like this to develop.
“We have to be realistic, we
want to build our economy, we want to create jobs for our people so we
have to balance that out,” he said.
Meantime, the company and
government have plans for a reforestation expansion into neighbouring
Stung Treng province, which has prompted concern from the commune likely
to be impacted.
Channel NewsAsia understands that the size of
that area could be as much as double that of the existing project in
Kratie, likely to lead to more huge losses in the Prey Lang Forest.
A
working group is currently comparing project proposal maps with aerial
maps to see if there is an overlap with Prey Lang land protected by a
government sub-decree since April. Nan Ony from NGO Forum says he is
confident the project will be suspended if that proves to be the case.
He
is leading an investigative report into the various disputes
surrounding both the Kratie and Stung Treng projects. It is an
arbitration role involving affected communities, various levels of
government and Think Biotech that can be frustrating and slow.
“We
are an NGO, we are just a middle man. We try to bring the community and
authority to the table to find a common solution. We are not solving
the problem,” he said.
Until then, the sides remain at loggerheads, fighting over a forest that is changing by the day.
Som has lived in the area, in Kratie province and on the banks of the mighty Mekong River, for three decades. He is principally a rice farmer but has adopted a more confrontational role against Think Biotech and the developments around his home turf, one of the largest, most diverse tropical rainforests in Southeast Asia.
He is outspoken and bold, sometimes a risky combination when it comes to contending with the larger forces at play in Cambodia’s forest industry. His phone rings constantly and he speaks with a cheeky grin: something is always stirring. Yet his message is serious.
“We are farmers. We count on the land,” he said. “If we don’t go to protest, the company would take all of our land and we cannot live without land.
“If we go and they kill us, let us be killed. If we stay here, we have no land to farm… we are going to die.”
Som and his son Vanda, a former employee of Think Biotech – he claims he was fired because of his father’s activism – still venture into concession land often to tend to their rice field, which are planted haphazardly around the smouldering ruin of former forest. The elder explains why the land looks like it does.
“First they clear it of the valuable wood. Then they burn it. Then they clear it all out,” Som said.
Both
of them wander through the landscape identifying certain types of trees
and picking at vegetables growing at their feet. They stop and look as
two peacocks cry out as they fly past towards a still-standing tree in
the distance. “They have no home now,” Som says, almost angrily.
Vanda speaks of his childhood when he would come to “the farm” and spend time by the stream.
“It
was a thick forest with tall trees. We used to play here and swim. We
just brought salt and mango then we placed a net in the stream, it was
very clear, and we caught fish,” he said.
"It was completely, totally different," he laments.
In
part 3 of this series, which will be published on Aug 12, Jack Board
goes on patrol with the armed rangers who protect Cambodia's forests.
Read part 1: Illegal logging still threatens Cambodia's forests despite a ban on timber exports.
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