forest concessions - a greater threat?

In 1995 the Cambodian government, whilst involved in supposedly open discussions with various foreign aid donors regarding forestry issues, secretly awarded 32 forest concessions. These concessions, awarded contrary to the country's constitution, covered 6,464,021 ha, 35% of Cambodia's total land area. All but two of the concession companies had no experience in running a forest concession; they were merely investors. The World Bank estimated that in the case of Samling International, for example, their concession would have to be over-exploited by five times (50 m3 per ha as opposed to the sustainable Cambodian standard of 10 m3 per ha) in order for their processing facility to break even. In return for building processing facilities, the concessionaires received subsidised royalty costs of $14 per m3 when the world market value for timber at this time was between $350-800 per m3.

The January 1995 timber cutting and export ban theoretically prevented any entity from exploiting timber. The concessionaires and armed forces began to 'discover' logs 'anarchically' felled in their (and other) concession areas, supposedly felled by illegal loggers. To prevent these logs going to waste the concessionaires and army units applied for permission to transport these logs to concession processing facilities. These permissions were granted. Of course, this was merely a method of laundering illegally felled timber into the system and became responsible for 95% of illegal logging in Cambodia.

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