The death of Cambodia's
forests Keith Andrew Bettinger
Newspapers in Cambodia are always flush with
stories directly and indirectly related to the logging
industry in that country. In one region there has been
massive flooding, blamed by most experts on massive
deforestation, while in Ratanakiri and Kandal provinces
there has been a drought, as the dry season has come
early and is threatening the rice crop. The toll of such
environmental peculiarities is especially harsh on the
people of Cambodia, where more than 80% of the
population lives in rural areas and 36% lives in extreme
poverty, earning less than 50 US cents per day. Yet
deforestation is such a part of the politics and economy
in Cambodia that it will be difficult, if not
impossible, to reverse these trends. Pressures on the
forests come from every direction: displaced villagers,
corrupt government officials lining their pockets with
proceeds from illegal logging, other countries that have
banned logging within their own borders and demand that
Cambodia do the same and land speculators.
The
stories have appeared with increased frequency of late.
But with a new government and a concession system
endorsed by the World Bank in place, there is no
immediate imperative to do anything about the problem,
especially since those most affected have the least say
in deal making. The Cambodia Daily, the largest
English-language paper in Phnom Penh, routinely reports
on conflicts between villagers and logging companies.
Recently the paper detailed the plight of villagers
whose livelihoods were threatened by a land concession
to the giant firm Pheapimex for a paper-pulp plantation.
One farmer was quoted as saying, "If we lose that land,
it means we lose our jobs."
Local and state
authorities pay lip-service to the needs of the poorest
of the poor, which number so many in Cambodia. Governors
promise to address concerns, but often fail to appear
for scheduled meetings. In the above instance, villagers
were upset that the governor of Pursat province didn't
show up as promised to listen to their complaints and
broker a compromise between the villagers and Pheapimex.
Later on an unidentified assailant lobbed a grenade into
a crowd of villagers assembled to protest against the
logging company, injuring at least 10, three severely.
Police have indicated that they intend to arrest a
suspect soon, suggesting that the attack was
orchestrated by the villagers themselves to draw
sympathy for their plight.
Other conflicts
include the exploitation of villagers by speculating
land grabbers. Many who work the land and forests in
Cambodia do not have a proper title to the land, which,
on occasion, is sold by corrupt officials to "investors"
who then evict those occupying the land. The collusion
between land grabbers and local and provincial officials
makes it next to impossible for those affected to seek
redress for their grievances. This is especially severe
in Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces, where
communities are forced to clear land further into the
forests to compensate for land lost to speculators
through illegal channels. It is also the subject of
ongoing disputes in Sihanoukville and Siem Reap, as
squatters and poor residents are evicted and forced from
their homes, by both legal and illegal means, and forced
to settle elsewhere. In both cases, owners claiming
title to land that the poor relocate to have appeared
and demanded that the squatters move on. In these cases,
the legality of the title is questionable, as titles can
be purchased by those with money to spend.
Another recent development is the granting of
concessions to log and develop protected areas. This
week construction began on a golf course and theme park
within the Oral Wildlife Sanctuary in Kompong Speu
province. This project entails deforestation for
development, a common excuse for logging. Kampong Speu
is one of the most drought-affected provinces in
Cambodia, and Environmental Minister Mok Mareth had
earlier this year mentioned the possibility of water
shortages associated with the project. Still, work goes
on. In another case, Green Rich, a Taiwanese firm, broke
ground on a large plantation in Botum Sakor National
Park earlier this year. Environmental groups and local
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) contend that the
approval process was illegal, arguing that it violates
the 1993 royal decree on protected areas. Green Rich,
along with another company, currently are lobbying for a
huge concession in an ecologically fragile area in
southwest Cambodia. Green Rich maintains that its
plantation is ecologically sound and that it is
committed to reforestation through plantations.
But according to Dr Glen Barry, president of
US-based Forests.org, a conservation organization that
closely tracks forestry developments in Cambodia,
"Plantations are not forests. There is no biodiversity
and you lose all the other services that are provided by
natural forests," he explained. Creating plantations
also exacerbates the existing problem of illegal logging
in protected areas, but, as Barry pointed out, "even the
legal logging is questionable legally." For example,
Global Witness, a UK-based NGO that was officially
tapped by the Cambodian government and donor community
to monitor logging until it was fired by Prime Minister
Hun Sen in 2002, has documented large piles of illegal
logs in Virachey National Park in Ratanakiri. The park
was supposed to be under close supervision; the World
Bank and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) gave the Ministry of
Environment nearly US$5 million to manage and protect
the park over the period from 2002-05.
Hun Sen,
who promised in early 2000, "If I cannot put an end to
the illegal cutting of trees, I will resign from my
position of prime minister in the first quarter of
2001", has moved in fits and starts on the issue. On the
one hand, he ambivalently questions the veracity of the
claims that deforestation is responsible for the
environmental calamities. He was quoted in the Rasmei
Kampuchea newspaper last week as saying, "Those who
criticize me have said that the floods were caused by
deforestation. Now they say that the current drought is
also a result of deforestation. How come?" But despite
this, he seems to understand the seriousness of the
problem. He's called illegal loggers "traitors who want
to destroy the government", and has promised to punish
those involved. Last month he indicated in a very public
speech that it was time to do something about the
inequities and abuses in the land-concession system,
including the fact that many concessions are illegal and
result in serious conflicts between local people and
powerful companies. Thus trying to divine the prime
minister's attitude toward the problem is a challenging
task.
The reality probably lies somewhere
between ignoring the problem and passive complicity.
While Hun Sen understands the consequences of logging in
Cambodia, he also knows that it is an integral part of
the political system upon which his position depends.
Over the past 20 years warring factions and political
parties have used Cambodia's forest wealth to fund their
activities. In the early days after the UN-brokered
peace in the early 1990s, the army, forced to live off
the land and working for very scant wages from an all
but insolvent government, relied on proceeds from
logging to survive. The relationships that were formed
between army officers and logging companies still exist
today. The industry therefore is a part of the political
landscape and must be handled delicately. "The
government has done, and will continue to do the minimum
necessary to keep the World Bank money coming in," said
Barry. "The interests are so entrenched that those who
benefit are intimately tied to the power system." At the
heart of the logging industry is the concession system.
Contention over concessions The
concession system remains the preferred method of
managing forests in Cambodia, despite widespread
criticism. It began in the mid-1990s, when Hun Sen's
Cambodian People's Party and Prince Norodom Ranariddh's
Funcinpec were in control of the government. At that
time, the government approved concessions to two large
firms, one from Malaysia and the other from Indonesia,
to log out approximately 20% of the entire country. The
concessions were for 50 and 60 years respectively. Both
companies had been widely accused of illegal logging and
abusing the rights of indigenous people in Borneo.
Proceeds were supposed to help develop the economy, but
several years passed and the "forest dividend" never
materialized. Global Witness derided the arrangement as
rife with corruption.
Although an Asian
Development Bank report in 2000 called the concessions
practice "a total system failure" and periodic NGO
reports decry the continued adherence to the system, it
persists. Periodic moratoriums aim to give the
government and NGOs room to assess the state of
Cambodia's forests, but in practice the void in supply
is filled by illegal logging, both by concessionaires
themselves and independent loggers.
Simon
Taylor, director and co-founder of Global Witness,
asserts that "the military is essentially a vast,
organized crime network devoted to illegal logging,
smuggling and other black economy interests". Other
groups are equally concerned. The US Agency for
International Development (USAID) has said the forest
and land-concession system has failed to meet the needs
of rural people and the country as a whole: "They have
instead diminished the livelihood options for the rural
poor and degraded natural resources while failing to
capture economic benefits for the nation." Global
Witness said "the concessionaires have seriously
degraded one of the country's few natural resources
while abusing the rights of the forest-dependent
communities".
Pointing to a pattern of timber
theft, tax evasion, and collusion with corrupt
officials, Global Witness asserts that the system is
"the biggest obstacle for sound forest management ...
[and] continues to fuel the system of corruption,
secrecy, and fear". Taylor told Asia Times Online that
so far none of the 13 companies has produced adequate
sustainable forest-management plans or environmental and
social impact assessments. Each logging concessionaire
is required by law to submit reports detailing the
environmental and social impacts of the concession. In
practice, though, the Forestry Administration has been
commissioned to compile the reports for at least two of
the firms, creating a conflict of interest in which the
organization responsible for assessing the reports is
also the organization that compiled the reports.
'Cambodian Corruption
Assessment' Estimates vary as to the extent of
the corruption in Cambodia, but it is safe to say that
the revenue from illegal forestry activities is several
times that derived from legitimate enterprises and that
a significant number of bureaucrats, civil servants, and
politicians are getting a piece of the action. A recent
USAID report titled "Cambodian Corruption Assessment"
stated that "grand corruption involving illegal grants
of logging concessions coexist with the nearly universal
practice of small facilitation payments to speed or
simply secure service delivery".
"Forestry and
mining concessions are signed behind closed doors ... no
one outside the system knows what proportion of earnings
go to pay taxes, what proportion go to international
businesses as excessive profits, and what proportion are
transferred to foreign bank accounts." The report
alleges that the Agriculture Ministry, responsible for
forest concessions, is among the most corrupt
institutions in the Cambodian government.
"At
best, [the Ministry of Environment is] thoroughly
complicit and, at worst, guilty of treating protected
areas as their own slice of real estate to dispose of
for personal profit," said Global Witness's Taylor.
Although Hun Sen in September declared a "war on
corruption", the USAID report suggests that this kind of
pronouncement is "little more than a studied attempt to
tell donors what they want to hear".
"While the
government is capable of running rings around the
international community with finely worded statements on
reform, the reality is that the country's natural
resources are treated as a playground for crony
companies," said Taylor. Another report prepared by the
Vermont-based research organization ARD Incorporated for
USAID, indicated that the political elite has little
reason to observe existing laws because doing so would
eliminate an important source of funds and political
patronage. There is a well-established pattern of senior
officials providing loggers with permits and licenses
that are used as a cover for illegal logging and export
activities. These "foot in the door" tactics include
concessions to remove stumps and fallen wood. Once the
firm has secured such a concession, weak enforcement and
easily bribed officials make it a small step to full-on
illegal logging.
It is also difficult to know
how high the corruption goes. In a nation in which
government salaries are meager at best, many civil
servants seek to enrich themselves through bribes or by
taking part in illegal activities. In a case typical of
the gulf between promulgated law and practice, three
forestry officials in Pursat province were beaten last
week by a police officer when they tried to seize a
cargo of illegal timber. The police officer, who claimed
to own the logs, filed a lawsuit against the forestry
officials for the seizure. The provincial court
prosecutor of Pursat province was quoted in the Cambodia
Daily as saying, "It is strange that the illegal logger
sued the law enforcer."
USAID's corruption
assessment indicates that graft is a part of everyday
life and is pervasive in every aspect of society, so
much so that the line between legal and illegal is
blurred. Taylor asserts that these types of episodes are
simply the antics of the lowest on the totem pole, and
that the tentacles of graft reach up to the highest
levels, where senior officials, including the prime
minister, maintain their positions thanks to control of
patronage systems that substitute for a system of
government in Cambodia. The aforementioned Pheapimex,
which owns more than 5% of the country's total land area
under a concession, is run by Choeung Sopheap, "a crony
of Prime Minister Hun Sen". Global Witness told Asia
Times Online that the organization had documented ties
from logging companies operating under illegal
concessions to friends and family of the prime minister.
The government did not respond to this statement.
Outside pressures There are external
pressures on Cambodia as well. When the Thai government
halted logging in 1989, loggers simply went over the
border to Cambodia. The rate of deforestation increased
with the demand. Last year China banned logging as well,
and so Cambodia's trees are fueling an insatiable demand
for timber in Sichuan province that can no longer be met
locally. Safeguards such as country-of-origin stamping,
intended to prevent logs being smuggled into Vietnam,
are meaningless; loggers simply ship the wood to Laos
where it is stamped as a product of Laos and then
shipped on to Vietnam.
At the same time, the
impacts of deforestation are felt throughout the Mekong
basin. It is a regional problem that is complicated by
national boundaries. Removing forest cover increases
erosion, which results in more landslides and the
siltation of the Mekong River and the Tonle Sap. This
siltation increases the rate of eutrophication - where
waters rich in mineral and organic nutrients produce
plant life, especially algae, that reduces the oxygen
content and causes the extinction of other organisms -
in lakes and causes rivers to flood faster in the rainy
season, inundating areas not normally flooded.
Furthermore, in the dry season shallower lakes and
rivers dry up quicker. The effects are felt by fisherman
and subsistence farmers as their livelihoods are
threatened with each passing season.
Some of the
greatest pressure on the Cambodian government comes from
the World Bank, which has asserted that $100 million
worth of timber can be utilized on a sustainable basis.
Forests.org president Barry, a former consultant to the
World Bank in Papua New Guinea, suggested that the
philosophy of the bank "is to divide up the world's
remaining forests, and then manage them sustainably".
The bank funds schemes to utilize forest products and
sustainably cut trees, but in many countries that lack
the institutional capacity to enforce regulations as
well as the political will to do so, this is like the
fox guarding the henhouse. "The bank tries to be the
financier on the one hand and the regulator on the other
hand," said Barry. In July, the World Bank urged the
Cambodian government to approve the forest concessions
of six companies. Global Witness alleges that the
companies are fronted by relatives of Cambodia's senior
politicians. Global Witness, which is still active in
Cambodia, has been tracking the firms and has documented
abuses by the current concessionaires ranging from
timber laundering and bribery to the murder of an
activist by a company security guard. "These entities,
which are more mafia than corporate," explained Taylor,
"suppress efforts to halt their plunder by use of
violence against the poor."
For its part, the
World Bank maintains that its way is the best way to
develop the forest resources of Cambodia sustainably,
though the bank admits that its involvement has been
"difficult and frustrating". It also admits that severe
challenges remain with illegal logging, corruption, and
the exclusion of local people in the decision-making
process. Peter Stephens, World Bank communications
manager for the East Asia and Pacific region, said that
the bank's programs aim to achieve three goals: "To
improve the ways forests are managed in Cambodia ... [to
encourage] the government to confront [corruption]
issues and take further credible steps to improve the
governance of forest resources ... [and] to be more
transparent so that we can equip people with the
information they need to contribute to the solution."
The bank maintains that it backs the concession system
because it was the best game going in the 1990s and
thinks that it can be successful. But it is up-front
about the fact that transparency and a strong government
commitment are integral parts. A World Bank press
release also asserts that the bank did not call for the
acceptance of the six concessionaires, but rather
"supports a process in which concession companies had to
prepare and disclose their plans for operating the
concessions". The press release did not mention the
transparency of that process or the abuses alleged by
Global Witness, Barry, and others.
More
snouts in the trough One might hope that with the
formation of a new government, the Ministry of
Environment would begin to tackle the problems of
irresponsible concessions, illegal logging, and
unsustainable timber harvesting in protected areas.
Though when one considers that the new government
features the largest cabinet in the world, the situation
might appear hopeless. More ministers, deputy ministers,
and secretaries of state mean more open hands extended,
more corrupt bureaucrats looking to use their positions
to enrich themselves, more party cadres seeking a return
on the investment that bought them their position.
"Extra tiers of officials will doubtless equate
to more snouts in the trough," said Taylor, adding that
there is little chance of the new government acting on
its own. "Much depends on the extent to which the donor
community is prepared to hold the government to account
for its actions and demand these and other reforms be
enacted as a condition for further disbursements of
non-humanitarian aid."
Yang Phirom, national
coordinator for the Community Forestry Alliance of
Cambodia, said the results of the cabinet expansion have
not manifested themselves yet because questions still
loom over power sharing. But according to Taylor, recent
history is not encouraging, as "donors have consistently
settled for empty rhetoric from the government instead
of action".
So the $64,000 question now is: Will
anything happen? The answer is probably no - especially
when one factors in the damage that has already been
done and the entrenchedness of the interests involved,
and the types of reforms that would have to be made to
alleviate the problems. "We need to get beyond the
illusion that we can enforce and monitor the
concessionaires," said Barry, adding that "the country
is just not able to stop allocating forests to the big
companies".
Global Witness expresses a similar
sentiment. "The World Bank should be funding small-scale
community development initiatives, focusing on small-
and medium-scale production activities," it said. There
are laws on the books that could serve as a foundation
for a comprehensive system of regulations, most notably
the 2002 Forestry Law and the 2001 Land Law. However,
these are currently just writing on paper, and the
political will doesn't seem to exist to address
loopholes and construct more specific points.
Both Barry and Global Witness advocate community
forestry approaches, which decentralize control over
forest resources and aim to develop the nation from the
ground up. An important feature of these programs is
that they emphasize community participation and local
skills development. The approach has a great deal of
support from NGOs and local communities, and was also
favored in a recent Independent Forest Sector Review on
Cambodia, which was paid for by international donors and
jointly commissioned by donors and the government of
Cambodia.
The national coordinator, Yang,
discussed the state of community forestry in an
interview with Asia Times Online. He described various
conflicts between villagers and logging companies,
including disputes over the right to tap resin and
collect non-timber forest products. "Villagers always
complain that many resin trees have been cut down by the
logging companies," Yang said. "The government is always
on the logging concessions' side. There is no good
solution yet."
Yang also described the
aforementioned grenade attack in Pursat and stated that
there is no information yet as to who was behind the
plot. When asked about recent trends, Yang explained
that "poverty is getting worse and worse. Due to
deforestation, farmers are facing droughts which are
severely impacting rice cultivation." He was hopeful,
though, that new legislative initiatives relating to
community forestry would bear fruit and said the
Forestry Administration was helpful in his
organization's efforts. But community forestry programs
threaten the lucrative channels of graft that run from
the local levels all the way up to the central
government.
Estimates vary as to the amount of
forest cover remaining in Cambodia. In 1970, about 70%
of the country was covered by primary forest. The most
reliable estimates suggest that half has been logged
out, with the majority being taken over the past 10
years. It is not clear how the government accounts for
its forest stock, and repeated requests to the
Environmental Ministry and the Department of Nature
Conservation for comment and information were
unsuccessful. All experts agree that time is running
out. "The timber bloom has finished in Cambodia," said
Barry, explaining that the most profitable timber is
gone, causing companies to go after protected areas and
begin developing plantations. "What has happened there
is a real tragedy," he continued.
Cambodia is in
a state of flux right now. Further exacerbating the
problem is the expiration of the Multi-Fiber Agreement,
a system of preferences on garment exports that ensures
nations such as Cambodia will have a market for their
products. The agreement is set to expire at the end of
this year and most analysts expect Cambodia to be hit
hard as manufacturers shift to suppliers in China. This
could have the dual effect of increasing the number of
people that rely on forests for their livelihood, both
commercially and in subsistence terms, while increasing
the pressure on forests themselves to provide foreign
exchange and the corrupt greasing of the wheels that
keeps Cambodia running.
