Gov’t, Vietnam exchange blame on logging
Cambodian conservation officials spoke publicly for the first time on October 10 about what they described as nearly three years of corrupt practices by their Vietnamese counterparts in facilitating the multibillion-dollar illicit trade in Siamese rosewood. But their complaint comes amid allegations from Hanoi that the rot is among Cambodian officials, not their own. In March 2013, in response to dwindling global stocks of the luxury hardwood, all 177 member states of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species voted unanimously in favour of a proposal by Thailand and Vietnam to add Siamese rosewood to its index of protected species. Listing Siamese rosewood was supposed to curtail international trade in the precious timber. But in the three years that followed, nearly 2 million cubic metres were registered in the CITES global secretariat’s database as passing from Cambodia to Vietnam. Experts estimate as much as 95 percent of it would have been bound for China, where the rosewood market is estimated at $25 billion a year.
