As loggers exploit virus, Cambodian forest protectors defy state ban
A Cambodian conservation group has warned that logging in the protected Prey Lang forest has ramped up during the coronavirus pandemic, vowing it would continue to monitor the destruction despite government threats of legal action to stop that work.
Members of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation officials were allowing timber to be laundered through agri-business projects bordering the forest, one of Southeast Asia’s last lowland evergreen woodlands.
Neth Pheaktra, an environment ministry spokesman, said only “very small-scale illegal logging by local people” had taken place in Prey Lang, and authorities were working to stop it.
Matt Blomberg
