As loggers exploit virus, Cambodian forest protectors defy state ban

London-based Cambodian watchdog Global Witness has produced reports showing how politically connected Cambodian tycoons use concessions and military personnel to strip valuable wood from protected forests to feed thriving markets in China and Vietnam. - Xinhua/ANN

PHNOM PENH: A Cambodian conservation group has warned that logging in the protected Prey Lang forest has ramped up during the Covid-19 (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.