Tan Kimhour, head of the Nature Lovers Youth Association, poses with seized illegally logged timber. - Photo supplied
PHNOM PENH: In a bid to prevent forest crimes, for the past six years the Nature Lovers Youth Association has been working with the authorities and local communities to patrol the forests of the Oral Mountains across three provinces.
Recently, it cooperated with the Pursat provincial administration to identify large-scale illegal logging in Phnom Kravanh district.
The provincial court is taking legal action against the mastermind who is alleged to be behind the crimes, which are said to have gone on for years.
Phnom Penh Post reporter Phak Seangly interviewed Tan Kimhour, chief of the association, about the current state of forest crimes and his group’s forest patrol activities.
How many years have you been involved in protecting the forest? What motivated you to take on the role?
I have been involved in this work for six years. Our focus area is the Oral Mountains.
Spanning Kampong Speu, Pursat and Kampong Chhnang provinces, they cover an area of nearly 200,000 hectares.
The main reason I got involved was because of the foreign family of environmental activist Ben Davis, who works to protect the forest in Sangkum Thmei district, Preah Vihear province.
In 2018, when I visited the forest they safeguard and saw their efforts and the sacrifices they made, I felt ashamed.
I asked myself why we Cambodians, as the owners of the land and forests do not express concern, but let foreigners protect our resources.
I remembered the Oral area, which I visited in 2017.
I observed rampant unregulated logging and decided that I should do what I can to support the government, even if it is not much.
So preventing forest crimes is partly to support government efforts and partly due to being embarrassed by the efforts of Davis and his family.
In the beginning, I thought I would only do this work for a few years because I did not have much money.
The more I do it, the more emotional invested I am and the more I love it.
I still see things that my presence can help with, and I have never stopped.
What are some of the challenges you have faced so far while patrolling the forests?
We encounter countless difficulties during our patrols.
This includes actually moving through the dense forests, the risk of disease and even the risk of losing our way.
We have become lost in the forest more than ten times!
The major threat we face is dealing with loggers or the guys transporting the timber.
This is the riskiest part of what we do.
Our forest patrols are destroying their “rice pots” (businesses) and disrupting their illegal income.
This makes them so unhappy that we sometimes receive death threats.
For example, I have been warned that if I dare to go near some places, “I will not return, but my dead body will remain there”.
We have been warned off or suffered attempts to intimidate us on many, many occasions.
While travelling on the road, we must be careful, or else we can be injured by people throwing stones or other forms of violence.
Back in 2019, the chief of the Samaky Community Forest in the Oral area collected local people's thumbprints and presented a petition to us, urging us to leave the area.
When we asked for the reason they wanted to keep us away, we wanted to file a complaint against them, and then the issue went quiet.
We were preventing local people from encroaching on forest land, deforestation and illegal hunting, in contrast to the local leader who allowed them to do so.
This is why the leader was unhappy and did not welcome our presence.
Last April, four motorbikes of one of my teams were burned in Kampong Speu province’s Oral district.
This was one of the most serious threats we have faced, but we had already mentally prepared for the fact that one day something like that might happen.
I had often warned my colleagues that one day the verbal threats would stop, and more serious threats would follow. Of course, it happened.
Our motorcycles were set on fire. As of now, we have not yet received justice or a response from the authorities.
How often do you patrol the forest? And who else takes part?
Sometimes we ask for direct cooperation from local officials, like environmental rangers.
Sometimes we ask for the assistance of conservation organisations that have signed agreements with the Ministry of Environment.
At other times, we work with the members of local communities.
Generally, we patrol every three days, but if we are tipped off about forest crimes we may stay out on patrol for as long as 15 days in a row.
I have noticed that every time we patrol with local environmental rangers, we do not achieve remarkable results.
This led me to invite the participation of the Wildlife Alliance team, which consists of officials from the Military Police, as well as environmental experts.
The results are very different between patrolling with local officials and the national level ones who work in cooperation with conservation NGOs.
When we work with the NGOs, we uncover more crimes than we do when local officials join us.
From the time when you began until now, how do you view the situation of forest crime? And what are the reasons for any changes you may have seen?
Based on what we have observed, before our presence, forest crimes like the logging and transporting of timber appeared to be happening in the open.
Sometimes, timber transport on home-made tractors was lined up like they were getting ready for a festival!
There could be up to 100 tractors, trucks, ox carts and motorbike transporting logs of timber without any fear at all.
At the present time, however, you do not see as many crimes being committed out in the open, in the anarchic way they used to happen.
They are afraid of us and commit their crimes in secret, transporting the logs at night because it is quiet.
This is very different from before, but we do not know whether the number of forest crimes has decreased or increased because we do not have any statistics on these crimes.
When discover loggers or evidence of illegal logging such as timber, chainsaws, trucks, etc, how do you deal with them?
The first or second time we see a perpetrator transporting timber or destroying the forest, we issue a warning.
If we catch them a third time, we work with the authorities.
Officials will join us and they will build a case that will be sent to court for legal action.
Our team has no authority to build a case by ourselves.
If we discover tools like chainsaws, we generally make the perpetrators transport them out of the forest for us, as long as we are not too deep in the forest and the path is not so difficult.
If the loggers escape, we usually destroy their chainsaws on site, generally by burning them.
Likewise for timber. If the trail is not so bad, we transport it out because we do not want to destroy it.
If we keep it for state property, it can be handed over to poor people. It is useful.
If the location is too remote to safely bring the timber out, we have no choice but to destroy it, again by burning it.
If we did not do so, the suspects will return to take it and the cycle of crime starts all over again.
In general, when we confiscate timber, it is around two cubic metres worth.
Recently, we discovered more than 30 cubic metres, the most I have ever seen since I began patrolling.
To what extent are the authorities cooperating to prevent forest crimes?
It very much depends on the area and the province.
For example, where we patrol in Pursat province, the provincial authorities are working very hard to cooperate with us and are cracking down on forest crimes very effectively.
The authorities in other provinces seem to be paying less attention and don’t seem like they want to cooperate with us, unless there is a big incident.
To prevent forest crimes from taking place anywhere requires the participation and cooperation of local leaders, otherwise, even if there are hundreds and thousands of Tan Kimsours, the crackdown will not be effective.
What do you believe needs to be done to tackle ongoing forest crimes?
I think that the only way to eliminate them is to strengthen the discipline of all relevant officials.
This includes agreeing to impose serious penalties on any official who is found to have conspired with the perpetrators of forest crimes.
Every day, forest crimes are happening because officials on duty in the area collude with the loggers, or the people behind the crimes.
If every single official followed the law, I believe that forest crimes would be almost completely eliminated.
Why? Because there are very few ways to transport large pieces of timber.
They cannot be hidden in people’s pockets or smuggled by air.
The timber is often transported through checkpoints, which are guarded by officials.
Lastly, do you have any suggestions for the public and government to improve the protection of the forest?
I would like to ask the Kingdom’s leaders at all levels, as well as the public, to pay closer attention to the problem and share their concerns with us.
Additionally, I would like to call for the relevant ministries to establish an independent committee which would monitor all local officials.
The committee should have the power to take strict measures against any official who conspires, or turns a blind eye to forest crimes.
Otherwise, it is like clearing weed from a pond. We can catch people and tell them to stop, but they will just return to do it again. - The Phnom Penh Post/ANN
[Note: Some responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.]
