Trucks transport timber from Virachey National Park in northeastern Cambodia's Ratanakiri province, Feb. 2017.
Photo courtesy of Environmental Investigation Agency
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Vietnam Still Smuggling Timber From Cambodia Despite Ban, NGO Investigation Finds
RFA | 8 May 2017
Corrupt
government officials and military personnel in Vietnam have been smuggling huge
quantities of illegal timber from Cambodia, despite the latter country’s ban on
log exports to its neighbor, according to a new report by an investigative
nongovernmental organization issued on Monday.
The
London-based Environmental Investigation Agency’s (EIA) report entitled “Repeat
Offender: Vietnam’s Persistent Trade in Illegal Timber” says those involved are
pocketing millions in bribes from timber smugglers for allowing hundreds of
thousands of cubic meters of logs stolen from Cambodia’s national parks to be
laundered into Vietnam’s lucrative timber economy.
The
report was released days before Vietnam and the European Union are due to sign
an agreement whose purpose is to ensure that only legal timber is exported from
Vietnam.
EIA said
that approximately 300,000 cubic meters of logs have been smuggled out of
Cambodia and laundered in Vietnam, and kickbacks to Cambodia authorities have
likely amounted to more than $13 million since early last November [a 6-mo period!].
“This is
the single largest log-smuggling operation that we have seen for years,” said
EIA senior forests campaigner Jago Wadley in a statement. “Vietnam must address
this weak approach to any agreement with the EU to combat illegal logging and
the associated trade.”
That the
EU’s Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade, or FLEGT, agreement on
timber “does not address the fundamental issues which Vietnam is currently
ignoring will result in a fundamentally flawed agreement,” he said.
Cambodia,
which has a timber export ban in place, closed its border with Vietnam to
timber exports in early 2016.
From
November 2016 to March of this year, undercover EIA investigators found illegal logging on unprecedented
scales in Community Protected Areas (CPAs) in Virachey
and Ou Ya Dav national parks and in Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary–protected areas
in northeast Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province, some of which are funded by the
EU, the statement said.
Despite
Cambodia’s timber export ban, Vietnamese state and security officials have
facilitated illegal logging in Cambodia and have issued quotas that give the
timber lawful status in Vietnam’s economy.
Ouch
Leng, an investigative reporter and activist who has exposed illegal logging
and corruption in the Prey Lang forest in Cambodia and who won the 2016 Goldman
Environmental Prize, agrees with the EIA’s findings.
He said
such illegal activities have been occurring for a long time.
“The illegal logging business
with Vietnam has been in place since 1986,” he told RFA’s
Khmer Service. “Vietnam
uses political and economic influence on Cambodia and Laos to export the timber
to European countries.”
Sao
Sopheap, a spokesman for the Ministry of Environment, dismissed the report’s
findings, arguing that Cambodia has banned all timber exports since early 2016.
“We have
also asked our Vietnamese counterparts to join us in curbing illegal logging in
Cambodia,” he said. “Cambodia and Vietnam have agreed to combat this illegal
trade.”
There was
no immediate reaction from Vietnam to the report.
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