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Despite the introduction of a moratorium on concession logging in 2002, illegal logging is causing severe damage to Cambodia's remaining forests.  The last global forest cover survey by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) found that Cambodia had lost 29% of its primary tropical forest over a five year period. The biggest illegal logging threats at the moment are schemes such as illegal harvesting permits, economic land concessions, mining concessions and annual bidding coupes. All of the schemes are characterised by corruption and a lack of transparency.

Permits

After the suspension of logging concession operations, the issuing of permits and licences which are illegal, or designed to provide a cover for illegal activities has increased and diversified.  These included permits to collect ‘old logs' - a practice banned by Hun Sen in 1999 because of its widespread use as a cover for illegal logging operations.  Innovative variations on the ‘old log' collection theme also emerged, notably licences to collect tree stumps, branches and poles, authorisations to cut timber for racing boats and permits to build wooden towers for the parachute regiment to jump off.

Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)

Economic land concessions, i.e. concessions to create plantations, are now the primary vehicle for industrial logging in Cambodia.  Under Cambodian law, officials may not allocate ELCs on forested land.  This provision is routinely violated, however, and ELCs are being used as a pretext for clear-felling large swathes of forest in several provinces.  Through these schemes, officials have allocated to pro-CPP tycoons land which contains valuable forest. The forest is then cut down, supposedly to make way for the plantations, and the timber is sold. The damage to the forest is terminal. 

The rate at which ministers are allocating new ELCs appears to be accelerating.  In September 2006 Global Witness surveyed four new ELCs, all of which proved to be situated on forest.  A representative of one of the concessionaires told Global Witness that they had acquired several ELCs (each 10,000 hectares) on forest, with a view to clear-cutting and selling the timber.

ELCs on forested areas adversely affect local people, who lose a valuable source of non-timber forest products such as tree resin.  At the same there is little evidence that they are providing either revenues to the state, or job opportunities for the rural population.  Protests by local people have, in several cases, been met with violence.  In September 2006, police attacked villagers living on land awarded as an ELC to a senator from the ruling political party, with one man reportedly sustaining gunshot wounds. 

The government has declined to meet even minimum transparency standards in its allocation of ELCs, which are awarded without the prior public consultation or environmental impact assessment required by law.  This makes it practically impossible for those populations affected, or Cambodian civil society groups, to hold the government and the concessionaires to account. 

Mining Concessions

In the past year, several cases have emerged of mining concessions being allocated on forested land and, in many cases, inside protected areas.  Under a law passed in 1994, it was illegal to situate a mine in a protected area.  In August 2006 the government introduced new legislation that removes this restriction.  As with ELCs, there is no transparency in the allocation of mining concessions and little scope for the Cambodian public to scrutinise the way in which the country's mineral reserves are being exploited.  While Global Witness is aware of a small number of cases in which mining companies have prepared environmental and social impact assessments, the quality of these documents has been extraordinarily low.

Local media and NGOs have previously documented pollution caused by gold mining operations in Cambodia's forests and the new wave of mining concessions could be similarly environmentally damaging.  As with ELCs, neither the government officials that allocate the mining concessions, nor the companies themselves, have yet demonstrated that they contribute in any meaningful way to Cambodia's development.

Annual Bidding Coupes

Since the suspension of logging concessions in 2002, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has been developing a system of annual bidding coupes, under which companies log areas of production forest for one year only.  The first annual coupe to be allocated, nominally for procuring timber for a new National Assembly building, offers few grounds for optimism.  Officials secretly awarded cutting rights to a firm that appears to have no previous experience of forest management beyond involvement in an illegal logging operation in a national park in 2004.  The company has clashed with local people who claim the coupe area as a community forest.  Moreover, Global Witness has received credible reports that timber cut in the coupe has been exported to Vietnam instead of being used for the National Assembly construction as required.

This poses serious questions as to how the government intends to allocate other proposed annual bidding coupes.  Laws governing the awarding of logging concessions preclude companies that have previously violated forest management regulations.  Statements by officials indicate, however, they may waive this safeguard in the case of the coupes. This would enable firms that operated illegally under the concession system to return to industrial logging under the guise of a new harvesting regime.