Plundering Cambodia’s Forests
Under a rickety wooden stilt house near Cambodia’s Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the country’s leading environmental campaigners is preparing dinner.
Ouch Leng stuffs raw meat into an empty beer can and throws it into the fire. It’s a poor man’s feast for his team of investigators to fuel them through a night’s surveillance.
Chewing pork and buffalo, their infrared optics and cameras ready to record, they wait patiently for trucks to emerge from the darkness.
Their cargo? Timber logged illegally inside a wildlife sanctuary that is meant to be protected under Cambodian law.
“We went and saw eight trucks inside one sawmill and another timber truck was loaded with square logs,” he says, as he chops vegetables for dinner.
“It’s ready to export out tonight.”
