Deforestation
Deforestation
A recent article showing Cambodia is ranked third in the world for primary forest loss. Nothing new really!
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/ ... ation.html
It appears there are now various initiatives in place to try to prevent further loss of key species, principally involving the education of local villagers and children. However is it too little too late and are the incentives offered to the villagers enough to discourage them from carrying on their current practices? maybe the next generation on khmers might have a better understanding of environmental issues which is significantly lacking currently.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/ ... ation.html
It appears there are now various initiatives in place to try to prevent further loss of key species, principally involving the education of local villagers and children. However is it too little too late and are the incentives offered to the villagers enough to discourage them from carrying on their current practices? maybe the next generation on khmers might have a better understanding of environmental issues which is significantly lacking currently.
The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people.(Marx)
Doesnt realy help as its not the villagers who are clearing the forrest to make way for more rubbertrees.
None but ourselves can free our mind.
Yeah those damn children with their bulldozers and chainsaws.
Really I think it is inevitable that the forests are cleared for crops and rubber.
Its just a shame that the rich will get richer from it instead of the whole country benefiting.
Wouldnt it be good if the development resulted in new schools and hospitals in the provinces affected.
Really I think it is inevitable that the forests are cleared for crops and rubber.
Its just a shame that the rich will get richer from it instead of the whole country benefiting.
Wouldnt it be good if the development resulted in new schools and hospitals in the provinces affected.
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In my experience working in remote and/or protected forest areas in northern Cambodia, it’s invariably villagers who are doing the logging. Sometimes the guys doing the cutting are making a pittance and doing it on behalf of someone slightly up the food chain in a nearby village, but villagers they are. Chainsaws are supposedly illegal, but take a walk in any forest around here and you’ll hear a chorus of them.Visser wrote:Doesnt realy help as its not the villagers who are clearing the forrest to make way for more rubbertrees.
Large, old-growth, high-value trees are now basically non-existent in the forests of Siem Reap Province thanks to selective logging by villagers, with the exception of around Angkor Thom -- so, strictly speaking, the amount of ‘primary forest’ remaining in this province is basically zero. Preah Vihear Province is rapidly heading the same way.
That’s why I’m astonished that this figure of 3.42% is so low, and I suspect that they’re really only measuring clear-cutting for development, which has to be a very small part of the picture compared to villagers systematically laying waste to primary forest....
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Not sure I follow -- you mean that the govt is downplaying large-scale clearing by their mates & conveniently blaming everything on villagers? I didn't get that from from that article, but I don't doubt that it's true. My point is just that the villagers are by no means blameless. Or do you mean that the government concedes somewhere else that this NGO's estimate of 3.42% is way low?
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I think Visser at al meant that the person/persons who instigate/ reward the practice of logging are not your run -of- the- rice- mill villagers.
Obviously you don't have businessmen wielding chainsaws, much too messy.
Obviously you don't have businessmen wielding chainsaws, much too messy.
ירי ילדים והפצצת אזרחים דורש אומץ, כמו גם הטרדה מינית של עובדי ההוראה.
Yep, telling a villager to stop will only result for loss of income/food on the table for said villager while the people who run the show will just hire someone else to do the cutting.
In a country that this year sold around 10% of Virachey national park to Vietnamese rubbergrowers it realy doesnt make sense to me to try and combat this at grassroots level.
In a country that this year sold around 10% of Virachey national park to Vietnamese rubbergrowers it realy doesnt make sense to me to try and combat this at grassroots level.
None but ourselves can free our mind.
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Fair enough, but while I think that’s obviously true for clear-felling for development projects, I’m not so sure it holds true for selective logging of primary forest.
In the latter case it seems to me that much of the value chain remains at local level, even if the people actually doing the cutting get paid very little. From what I’ve seen it’s turned out to be powerful people at local level (rather than corporate interests beholden to people in PP for example) who are behind it. Mae phum, mae khum, local army and police honchos, connected local businessmen who actually own the chainsaws and commission loads and truck the wood to town, and so on. In this kind of scenario rare hardwoods are usually cut into planks or chunks using chainsaws right where they’ve been felled, and if the wood leaves the local district at all it will be as boards or as hideous furniture directly on their way to a big-city retailer.
The people way up the food chain in the police and the army and the CPP will get their cut, of course, but even so... to say that the major threat to Cambodia’s forests comes from private companies getting formal concessions for plantations and dams and mines and other development projects, then sending in teams with bulldozers and chainsaws, I think might be missing the bigger picture.
In the latter case it seems to me that much of the value chain remains at local level, even if the people actually doing the cutting get paid very little. From what I’ve seen it’s turned out to be powerful people at local level (rather than corporate interests beholden to people in PP for example) who are behind it. Mae phum, mae khum, local army and police honchos, connected local businessmen who actually own the chainsaws and commission loads and truck the wood to town, and so on. In this kind of scenario rare hardwoods are usually cut into planks or chunks using chainsaws right where they’ve been felled, and if the wood leaves the local district at all it will be as boards or as hideous furniture directly on their way to a big-city retailer.
The people way up the food chain in the police and the army and the CPP will get their cut, of course, but even so... to say that the major threat to Cambodia’s forests comes from private companies getting formal concessions for plantations and dams and mines and other development projects, then sending in teams with bulldozers and chainsaws, I think might be missing the bigger picture.
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[quote="shitegeist"] In my experience working in remote and/or protected forest areas in northern Cambodia, it’s invariably villagers who are doing the logging. Sometimes the guys doing the cutting are making a pittance and doing it on behalf of someone slightly up the food chain in a nearby village, but villagers they are.
and whom is using the end product ?
and whom is using the end product ?
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I don't know.
No stats to hand, but considering that use of wood is no more prevalent in urban Cambodia than in rural Cambodia (probably less), and considering that at least 11 or 12 of Cambodia's 15 million people live in rural areas, I guess there you have the answer to your question.
What's your point again?
No stats to hand, but considering that use of wood is no more prevalent in urban Cambodia than in rural Cambodia (probably less), and considering that at least 11 or 12 of Cambodia's 15 million people live in rural areas, I guess there you have the answer to your question.
What's your point again?
The end product seems to be selling to Vietnam. Not that much wood being used in Phnom Penh.
What I meant further up is government officials who've been finding wood on the properties of local bigwigs, who in turn get it from villagers.
What I meant further up is government officials who've been finding wood on the properties of local bigwigs, who in turn get it from villagers.
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Wood is way too expensive these days, bricks and concrete are the way to go.SunSan wrote:The end product seems to be selling to Vietnam. Not that much wood being used in Phnom Penh.
Who Gives a Fuck?
Exactly.
But the Vietnamese have a strong furniture industry. They'll pay for luxury woods.
But the Vietnamese have a strong furniture industry. They'll pay for luxury woods.
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