Mongabay Series: Trackers
Located in the confines of eastern Cambodia is the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the most important forest spaces in the country and a rare wildlife refuge.However, at this time there are also common visits of well-documented human predators.Logging corporations and illegal loggers, operating with renewed vigour under the canopy of the global pandemic, have devastated giant spaces in the park, without worrying about being investigated by foreign NGOs.
First created as a Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area in 2002, the protected domain was later named Seima Protected Forest in 2009, earlier despite all fitting in with the Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary in 2016. In In terms of biodiversity, the entire site is of global importance. Almost a thousand species of plants, fungi and animals have been recorded in the region, and many Bunong, an indigenous ethnic minority organization in Cambodia, claim the sanctuary as their ancestral land. The jungle in the 3,000-square-kilometer (1,160-square-mile) sanctuary is home to the world’s largest known populations of several endangered species, adding the black-tailed douc langur (Pygathrix nigripes) and the yellow-cheeked gibbon. Southern (Nomascus gabriellae). The southern border of Keo Seima, which borders Vietnam, remains a paradise for elephants that live in tropical rainforests of evergreen, deciduous, semi-persistent and deciduous rainforests.
However, even that identified refuge for wildlife and indigenous peoples has infiltrated the predictable history of Cambodia’s losses.Between 2001 and 2019, Keo Seima lost 21% of its forest, adding much of the ancient forest, according to the University’s satellite knowledge.Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discanopyy Laboratory (UMD) Although the annual loss of forest canopy had decreased since its peak in 2014 (4% loss that year), 2019 showed twice the amount of loss (1.4%) compared to 2018 (0.72%).By 2020, this accumulation shows no signs of slowing down, with UMD’s knowledge recording more than 29,000 forest canopy loss alerts so far this year.
Researchers say the results of deforestation in the region are severe, affecting not only local animal species and trees, but also Bunong.Basically residing in Mondulkiri province, the Bunongs are the largest indigenous organization in the country’s highlands.vulnerable not only by deforestation, but also by what they and their advocates say is an increasingly understanding government. In May, more than two hundred Bunong demonstrators protested after being denied access to Keo Seima’s farmland, a Cambodian Ministry of Environment resolution that Kroeung Tola, a representative of the Bunongs, told local media that they deserve land rights under a law promising state lands for classical or networked agriculture in an area.However, obtaining such protections can be very complicated due to a lengthy and costly application process.
Keo Seima has twice been included in the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) “Last of the Wild” list (early 1990s and 2004), a compilation of the spaces least affected by human activity.agriculture to survive, others have invaded the sanctuary to tame and massacre for profit.By 2018, the stage had deteriorated to such an extent when a ranger, an army police officer and a WCS staff member were shot dead in the face of illegal loggers.
A WCS staff member working on his REDD Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary project, which advocates coverage of rangers, forests and the granting of legal property titles to indigenous communities, said the maximum forest loss is due to agricultural expansion.
“It is largely land grabbing and small-scale agricultural expansion; agriculture is small-scale, not expansion, which is important,” the WCS worker told Mongabay, who asked to become an anonymous major again for security reasons.valuable trees in this region were cut down a long time ago.The expansion of the cassava and marañón farms …and the hoarding of land for speculative purposes, especially on the new border road, are the main drivers here.
The phenomenon described through the WCS staff member is not really new.Even recent deforestation in Keo Seima, as well as other protected areas such as the Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary and the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, can be attributed to the advent of Cambodia’s questionable economy.land concessions (LEC). These ELCs are land spaces, in protected spaces, assigned through the government to corporations that want to invest in agriculture for short-term monetary gains.They were first brought in 1996 and, although the practice officially ended in 2012, obvious deficiencies have necessarily allowed the practice to continue.
According to WCS, personal corporations that lately operate ELC in Keo Seima come with Wuzhishan L.S.Group Company, Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 1 Company and Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 Company.If the names of the last two corporations seem necessarily the same, you are approaching the root of the problem.Under Cambodian law, ELC corporations are limited to one hundred km2 (39 mi2) each, however, circumvent this restriction by registering as multiple entities with slightly different names.
In December 2017, a former VRG president was investigated for making an investment of $114.4 million in other companies.nearly two hundred square kilometers (77 mi2) by 2020.
Neither the director of Keo Seima, nor the Cambodian Ministry of Environment, nor the Wuzhishan L.S.The organization nor VRG responded to requests for comments on the recent loss of the forest canopy in Keo Seima.Touch data from Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 1 Company and Binh Phuoc Kratie Rubber 2 Company was not available at the time of production of this item.
Other major barriers to forest conservation come with the government’s recent bans on the use of satellite photographs to track illegal logging, making it even more difficult to monitor spaces such as the Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary, which has noticed that lots of hectares are cut in industrial areas.-Scale machines. Crystal Davis, director of Global Forest Watch (GFW), an online platform that visualizes satellite knowledge about the change of the land canopy, told Reuters that Cambodia was not the first country to attempt to censor or discredit their knowledge.
Having a vital component of the border of the shrine opposite Vietnam’s border also doesn’t help. In 2018, two forest areas, adding the Snoul Wildlife Sanctuary, were dissolved by royal decree after being almost completely stripped of forests, with much of the wood flowing.neighboring Vietnam.
The FLEGT agreement on the application of forestry regulations, governance and industry (FLEGT) between Vietnam and the European Union, which entered into force in June 2019, would ensure that all timber exported to the EU from Vietnam has a legal and verifiable origin.In fact, the agreement also fuels a burgeoning illegal cross-border industry between Cambodia and Vietnam, as rare wood, such as Siam’s rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis), is washed using a quota formula in Vietnam, ultimately granting it legal status.
Marcus Hardtke, an expert who has been working on forest problems in Cambodia since 1996 with several NGOs and has spent more than six years with foreign tracking organization Global Witness, said the cross-border log industry between Vietnam and Cambodia is flourishing..
“There is a steady flow of wood from the Seima Protected Area across the border with Vietnam,” he said.”It’s more varied now, occasionally at night, but it continues.And that almost reaches other people on several levels.Uniforms. It’s a balanced formula of bribery and influence.If this balance is altered, violence can occur.”
With the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, foreign organizations cannot access areas.The UK-based Environmental Research Agency (EIA) said it had been unable to bring anyone to Cambodia for months.
“Assessing Cambodia’s cross-border shipping is quite difficult, especially since it is not allowed at this time,” said Thomas Chung, an EIA forestry activist. “As a component of our national follow-up, we publicly record media reports of seizures and applicable activities.”
Chung said the organization’s reports actually show a decline in cross-border trade, but said high-risk timber sales have been known in the registers and, above all, that their numbers do not come with illegal trade figures.
As foreign NGOs are largely excluded from the county, the onus of tracking deforestation falls to Cambodia’s law enforcement efforts, which on paper look like conservation efforts in Keo Seima to slow forest loss. and protect the livelihoods of the other Bunong people. Since 2001, several laws have been passed, designed to grant title to Aboriginal communities within the barriers of the wildlife sanctuary.
However, environmentalists say the government’s intentions are materializing.
“The obvious objectives of these legislative acts are noble, and we are anything on paper: to ensure the legal popularity of old-owned land, especially for indigenous peoples [Bunong],” said the WCS staff member.”But the truth of its implementation is that The Earth was, and probably will be, given to anyone who can identify a varnish of legitimacy to a claim of ancient use.We have strongly legal titles for indigenous communities, and this has been and remains a vital component of our paintings in Keo Seima”.
WCS is one of the few conservation NGOs operating in Keo Seima.In today’s circumstances, it is almost speaking to anyone who has genuine wisdom about disorders in the region, which is largely due to the opacity caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but also to the lack of responsiveness of the environmental NGO component.Of the seven Cambodia-based organizations Mongabay contacted in the following year for two separate articles, only one was in a position to officially speak about the factor under investigation.Most did not respond at all.
“Major Western NGOs see themselves as service providers to ‘help the government,'” Hardtke said.”They don’t deal with organized forest crime. In the case of Keo Seima, they replaced the maps and called the Vietnamese flight” planned/authorized deforestation “on their maps, which is not their fear under REDD [the UN forest cover program], as they see it.This is just the ” unplanned deforestation “made through the small ones.These NGOs are in total agreement with local rangers they “help”.»
Hardtke said the price of environmental NGOs in Cambodia lies in conducting ecological studies and in the form of appliances and logistics, but added that they have interaction at the intermediate checkpoint with a “poor ministry” and therefore have very limited influence.”avoid mandatory confrontation because it can jeopardize your business model,” he said.It’s not the fault of some of the other people on the scene, it’s a systemic problem.”
The story of Keo Seima is not only that of a sanctuary, but that of an entire nation.A quick glance at Global Forest Watch shows giant portions of Cambodia covered in bright pink denoting a significant loss of tree cover, much of it replacing the dark green meaning forest number one.And Cambodia’s government turns out to be doing little to solve the challenge at the local or national level.
“The local government is complicit,” Hardtke said. Large portions of Keo Seima were destroyed in 2013/14 when the government delivered the most productive evergreen forest spaces to the infamous Vietnamese rubber companies, Keo Seima is a protected domain and an assignment of REDD The Vietnamese cleared more than 30,000 hectares [300 km2 or 116 square miles] and transported logs in trucks across the border with Vietnam.They also exploited the surrounding spaces with impunity.
As for the supposed corruption of the government, Hardtke doesn’t mess around.
“In cases like Seima, [authorities] are attacking the little one who built a hut along a forest trail.In other words, if the guy is not part of a land-ownership program organized by tougher locals and outdoor investors, “In this case, authorities, like rangers, are bribed or forced to cooperate.Businesses like multimillion-dollar Vietnamese wood capture are beyond the radar of park administration.Such transactions are concluded through the Phnom Penh Mafia.”and untouchable. Lower grades are paid.
“Cambodia’s government is attacking the deficient and serving the rich.”
Chris Humphrey is in Hanoi as Director of the Vietnam office for Deutsche Presse-Agentur. As a freelance journalist, he also writes for Mongabay and other publications, covering the environment, human rights, culture, and geopolitics. Follow him on Twitter @ HumphreyWrites
Header image: A rotating blade used for small-scale wood processing. Photo through Chris Humphrey for Mongabay.
Editor’s Note: This story was driven through Places to Watch, a Global Forest Watch (GFW) initiative designed to temporarily identify forest losses around the world and catalyze deeper research into those spaces.near real-time satellite knowledge, automated algorithms and box intelligence to identify new spaces per month. In partnership with Mongabay, GFW supports knowledge-based journalism through the offering of knowledge and maps generated through Places to Watch.Mongabay maintains the entire publisher independence over the articles reported this knowledge.
Remarks: Use this form to send a message to the editor of this article.If you want to post a public comment, you can post it on the back of the page.
Mongabay is a non-profit platform based in the US.But it’s not the first time On conservation and environmental sciences. Our EIN or tax identification number is 45-3714703.