Afrigather - A senior Cambodian official infamous for unlawful logging seems to be carving out an enormous swath of forest in what’s purported to be a protected space within the nation’s north.
- Satellite tv for pc imagery suggests some 3,100 hectares (7,700 acres) of protected forest could possibly be misplaced in a concession that activists and nameless officers say has been awarded to an organization led by Ouk Kimsan.
- Kimsan, who’s additionally the deputy governor of Preah Vihear province, denied proudly owning a concession inside Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary — regardless of his firm stating the alternative on its web site.
- Neighborhood activists, who handle a slice of the protected space, say their complaints about unlawful logging have been ignored by the provincial authorities, and blame a tradition of corruption.
PREAH VIHEAR, Cambodia — Vegetation lurches over a concrete wall that runs alongside a quiet street within the northern Cambodian province of Preah Vihear. Behind the wall, and the rusty gate that serves as the one entrance level, sits one in all Cambodia’s three medium-sized cashew nut processing factories. At 2 p.m. on a Thursday in late November final 12 months, the street is silent underneath the solar. Throughout the street, baking within the warmth, sits a barren stretch of land the place a forest as soon as stood.
In 2017, when the USA Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) launched a program giving taxpayer-funded grants to assist increase Cambodia’s agricultural productiveness, it turned to outfits like this. Cambodia is a serious producer of cashews, with some estimates suggesting as much as 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) reportedly under cultivation. However roughly 95% of its cashew exports are shipped uncooked to Vietnam, amounting to 711,513 metric tons in 2022, based on UN knowledge, that means that a lot of the earnings from the nuts have been generated elsewhere.
Among the many quite a few agricultural suppliers to obtain funding was the proprietor of this facility: Santana Agro Merchandise, a politically related firm primarily centered on cashew cultivation and processing, to which USAID awarded $96,700 between Oct. 15, 2018, and March 31, 2020, and which is listed on the United Nations Development Programme’s Sustainable Development Goals investor platform.
Such funding is far wanted if Cambodia is to satisfy its personal goal of expanding the cashew sector by 25% by 2027. However right here, alongside the dusty freeway that runs by means of Preah Vihear, there’s little proof that funding has helped to bolster meals safety or the native financial system.
The signal above the gate to Santana Agro’s manufacturing facility is sun-faded and weathered. And apart from one safety guard, there are restricted indicators of life.
Regardless of the investments, help and coverage shift, Cambodia’s cashew exports in 2023 reportedly dropped by roughly 10% in comparison with 2022. And Santana Agro is struggling, based on one man who recognized himself to reporters as an worker on the firm’s cashew processing manufacturing facility.
The person spoke on the situation of anonymity for concern of shedding his job, however stated that solely as a lot as 10% of the estimated 300 individuals working on the manufacturing facility are concerned in cashew manufacturing.
“Lately, because the COVID outbreak, the manufacturing facility hasn’t been processing cashews, they simply export the uncooked merchandise now,” the person stated when interviewed in November 2023. “Perhaps within the coming 12 months [2024] they may start processing once more.”
Right this moment, Santana Agro stands accused by an Indigenous community in Preah Vihear of illegally clearing their forest and grabbing their land, which previously stood instantly reverse the cashew processing manufacturing facility.
From corrupt conservationist to cashew kingpin by the use of timber trafficker
That Santana Agro is embroiled in a logging and land-grabbing scandal ought to come as no shock to anybody who is aware of the corporate’s proprietor. Ouk Kimsan, the sole listed director of Santana Agro, has a protracted, well-documented historical past within the illicit timber commerce.
Again in 2009, he was a comparatively unknown entity, working for the NGO Conservation Worldwide and the forestry administration in Pursat province. His job there was to monitor the development of the Stung Atay hydropower dam, the place notorious logger Strive Pheap made his title as Cambodia’s prime rosewood smuggler by means of his MDS Import Export company.
Strive Pheap plundered an estimated 16,000 cubic meters (565,000 cubic ft) of critically endangered Siamese rosewood (Dalbergia cochinchinensis) worth $227 million from Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary, the place the dam was being constructed. The dam’s 4,179-hectare (10,327-acre) reservoir was estimated to carry simply 1,000 m3 (35,300 ft3) of rosewood.
It’s unclear how lengthy Kimsan was working for Strive Pheap, however at 2 a.m. on July 25, 2009, Kimsan was arrested whereas making an attempt to smuggle the extremely coveted timber throughout the border to Vietnam. Kimsan’s arrest helped uncover what the The Phnom Penh Post dubbed “endemic corruption” inside Conservation Worldwide’s operations within the Cardamom Mountains on the time.
Kimsan’s profession as a conservationist ended right here, however his transition to manager of Strive Pheap’s logging operations in Preah Vihear province had solely simply begun. In 2010, a subdecree listed Kimsan as one in all many MDS Import Export staff who have been awarded a authorities commendation for philanthropy. And by 2015, Kimsan was serving as a bona fide spokesperson for Try Pheap.
Beginning out on the Preah Vihear provincial council for the ruling Cambodian Individuals’s Get together (CPP) in 2014, Kimsan’s political profession took off in tandem along with his work with Strive Pheap. He then rose to the rank of deputy provincial governor in 2022, only one 12 months after he was made chairman of the Preah Vihear chapter of the CPP Youth Working Group.
Moreover chairing Santana Agro, Kimsan is a tycoon holding the honorific oknha title, which is bestowed upon those that donate $500,000 to the federal government.
When contacted by Mongabay over the cellphone in December 2023, Kimsan confirmed that he’s the founding father of Santana Agro and stated he’s additionally “an mental in agriculture and the surroundings who loves my nation, society, individuals, and the surroundings.”
“I’ve by no means met you and a lot of the questions you requested me have been about issues I don’t know, particularly with tycoon Strive Pheap,” Kimsan stated. “I didn’t have any work associated to his firm and I by no means used my rights and powers to do something unlawful within the nation.”
He didn’t reply to allegations of corruption whereas working at Conservation Worldwide or about whether or not he nonetheless works for Strive Pheap. However in June 2022, Kimsan posted photos of himself from his time at Conservation Worldwide with out mentioning how that interval of his life got here to an finish. And at the least as not too long ago as 2016, Strive Pheap Group listed Kimsan as a senior supervisor, according to the company’s Facebook page.
It’s unclear whether or not Kimsan was nonetheless working for Strive Pheap in December 2019, when the tycoon was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department for corruption in relation to pure useful resource exploitation.
Santana Agro’s new cashew processing manufacturing facility additionally backs onto a rubber plantation owned by Strive Pheap; the manufacturing facility is lower than 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) from the plantation’s border.
A return to logging for Ouk Kimsan
Whereas his star continued to rise in native politics, Kimsan’s status — and that of Santana Agro — started to take a beating internationally.
CPP loyalists claimed the U.S. sanctions on Try Pheap would have no impact, however Kimsan actually felt the blow when USAID halted funding to Santana Agro attributable to his affiliation with Strive Pheap.
Wesley Holzer, a spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh, stated the funding course of for USAID Harvest II (and at present Harvest III) adopted normal USAID grants administration procedures and laws.
“In December 2019, USAID’s Harvest II implementing accomplice turned conscious of the connection between Kimsan and Strive Pheap following the US Treasury’s sanctioning of Strive Pheap, and at the moment USAID and the implementing accomplice took the choice to start closing out the grant and to not renew or increase the exercise,” Holzer wrote in an electronic mail to Mongabay. “Santana has not obtained any further funding from USAID since then.”
However withdrawal of worldwide monetary help coupled with the obvious stoop within the cashew enterprise hasn’t stopped Kimsan from devouring forests throughout Preah Vihear.
The person who recognized himself as an worker of Santana Agro went on to element how, all through 2022 and 2023, individuals have been usually visiting the cashew processing manufacturing facility to purchase timber that he suspected was logged from Chi Ouk Boeung Prey, a group protected space that sits instantly reverse Santana Agro’s manufacturing facility in Preah Vihear.
The corporate has been in battle with the group of Chi Ouk Boeung Prey since 2022.
“Not solely luxurious wooden, however each type of wooden, proper right down to firewood,” the worker stated. “I’m unsure if that is one thing Santana’s administration knew about or whether or not it was simply native guys making the most of the scenario.”
The sale of timber from Santana Agro’s cashew manufacturing facility was corroborated by members of the Chi Ouk Boeung Prey group, who alleged the corporate had employed outdoors loggers and colluded with members of the group to intestine the forest of all the precious timber species.
Established on Jan. 17, 2003, Chi Ouk Boeung Prey is one in all Cambodia’s oldest group protected areas (CPAs), small forests which can be protected by native communities along side environmental authorities. Most of the CPA’s guardians belonging to the Indigenous Kuy ethnic group, a minority group that lives largely in concord with Cambodia’s remaining forests.
Chi Ouk Boeung Prey spans 2,080 hectares (5,140 acres) and bears the scars of a forest that has been ravaged systematically. The influence of Kimsan and Santana Agro is felt keenly among the many largely Kuy group, for whom the forest offered a lifeline of financial independence.
“We used to have the ability to accumulate fruit, mushrooms, honey and resin as merchandise to promote on prime of farming. There was monkeys and different wildlife, however they’re all gone — the whole lot’s gone now, the group can now not depend on what’s left of the forest,” stated Chun Seiha, a Kuy member of the Chi Ouk Boeung Prey group.
As Seiha took reporters on a tour of the remnants of Chi Ouk Boeung Prey’s forest in late November 2023, he identified giant stumps of what have been as soon as resin bushes that had supported the livelihoods of the group.
Whereas Seiha laid the blame completely at Santana Agro’s ft, he famous that the corporate employed locals and labored with middlemen to log all the finest timber in the neighborhood forest, initially focusing on beneficial tree species resembling ch’teal (Dipterocarpus alatus, listed as vulnerable), korkoh (Sindora siamensis), trach (Dipterocarpus intricatus) and p’deak (Anisoptera costata), the latter two listed as endangered.
The logging of Chi Ouk Boeung Prey was, Seiha posited, a part of an orchestrated try to undermine the integrity of the CPA: if there’s no forest, there’s nothing to guard.
“Then it may be offered off [to Santana Agro],” Seiha stated.
Promoting out the group and promoting off the forest
Alongside the street that borders the forest of Chi Ouk Boeung Prey, a number of kilometers south of Santana Agro’s manufacturing facility, San Sea and his spouse, Prum Suhen, sat underneath their small picket dwelling. A Kuy couple, they have been born in Chi Ouk village within the early Sixties and have labored to protect Chi Ouk Boeung Prey because it was previously registered as a CPA in 2003.
“We complained to the native authorities [about the logging], however our stories have been ignored,” Sea stated. “The group forest is managed by the provincial division of surroundings, which makes it tough for us to guard it.”
That Kimsan, the topic of their complaints, is at present the province’s deputy governor, makes taking motion notably tough.
Suhen alleged that corrupt networks of patronage throughout the provincial administration had ensured that the group’s complaints towards Kimsan weren’t addressed. The size and extent of corruption in Cambodia is well-documented and with most civil servants’ salaries sitting at little more than $300 per month, patronage turns into the one means for many government employees to survive.
Suhen alleged that even the top of the Chi Ouk Boeung Prey CPA has shut ties to Santana Agro.
“In 2022, Contact Leihay turned chief of the Chi Ouk Boeung Prey group council,” she stated. “No person knew her or why a Khmer girl was main a largely Kuy group, however she is near Santana.”
When reporters tracked Leihay down, she was sleeping outdoors her dwelling on a Thursday afternoon in November 2023. The home, adorned with banners bearing the logos and slogans of the ruling CPP, stands out from that of its neighbors as a extra fashionable construct.
Leihay initially agreed to an interview, however rapidly turned agitated when questioned about Santana Agro’s clearing of Chi Ouk Boeung Prey.
“Santana cleared [forest] based mostly on the place the group agreed,” she stated. “The group agreed to present the corporate a part of the group protected space for growth, I’m unsure when this occurred, nevertheless it was round 300 hectares [740 acres].”
At first, Leihay stated it was the earlier council chief who had signed off on the take care of Santana Agro — a person who she stated had died a number of months beforehand. Then she stated it was her deputy who made the deal, however claimed she couldn’t keep in mind her deputy’s title.
“I don’t have the paperwork to indicate that we legally gave the corporate the land, I’m very busy,” she stated.
Moreover confirming that she had met a consultant from Santana Agro (she claimed to not keep in mind who or when), Leihay didn’t reply to questions concerning the legality of the land deal or the clearing, which has seen selective logging rob the entire forest of essentially the most beneficial bushes, quite than only a 300-hectare plot.
At this level, Leihay walked away from the interview and didn’t reply to additional questions.
“Chapter 3, Article 11 says that the group can not promote or hire the land to the businesses or to a person,” Seiha stated in response to Leihay’s claims, referring to the Chi Ouk Boeung Prey CPA structure, which was issued by the Ministry of Setting in 2003 and particulars the legal guidelines that govern the forest.
Seiha stated many members of the Chi Ouk Boeung Prey group have been outraged that Santana Agro was destroying the forest, whereas others didn’t converse out as a result of they hoped the corporate would convey employment to the realm.
In line with Seiha, some members of the group agreed to signal, utilizing their thumbprints, paperwork in help of Santana Agro clearing the forest, within the hope of getting a job.
“You must perceive that for many individuals right here, there’s merely no alternative,” he stated. “Many individuals don’t have a lot entry to info, they get scared after they hear the wealthy or highly effective are coming to take a position, in order that they keep silent. That’s what permits the plans of the wealthy to go easily.”
Neither the Ministry of Setting, the Ministry of Agriculture, the provincial administration of Preah Vihear nor the provincial division of surroundings responded to a number of requests for remark from Mongabay.
Forests devoured by ‘growth’
Chi Ouk Boeung Prey has lengthy held out as a small island of forest amid a sea of doubtful growth, however Santana Agro has been fast to undo the twenty years of labor by the group that had resulted within the CPA really increasing from 1,500 to 2,080 hectares (3,700 to five,140 acres) in 2006 as residents voted to incorporate a few of their farmlands within the CPA.
Between 2006 and 2022, Chi Ouk Boeung Prey has misplaced 365 hectares (902 acres) of main forest, according to Global Forest Watch. Practically half of that, 178 hectares (440 acres), was misplaced in 2022 when Santana Agro started clearing the CPA. From January 2023 to January 2024, virtually 7,500 deforestation alerts spanning 90 hectares (222 acres) have been detected by Global Forest Watch.
However Chi Ouk Boeung Prey sits inside Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, a roughly 265,000-hectare (655,000-acre) protected space managed by the Ministry of Setting. Although nominally protected, Beng Per lost roughly 128,000 hectares (316,300 acres) of forest between 2001 and 2022, together with some 96,300 hectares (238,000 acres) of main forest.
Forest losses embody some 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) that have been transformed into rubber plantations between 2010 and 2011 underneath Cambodia’s economic land concession (ELC) policy.
Forest loss in Beng Per appears to be like set to proceed, based on Seiha and different residents of Chi Ouk village, who warned that Santana Agro can also be setting its sights on Beng Per, in addition to Chi Ouk Boeung Prey.
Composite satellite tv for pc imagery exhibits that, over the course of 2023, what seems to be a brand new ELC is being carved out of Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary. The borders reduce across the edges becoming neatly round surrounding ELCs, coupled with the next clear-cutting of forest round an current rubber plantation, recommend {that a} new plantation is being created.
Some 695 hectares (1,717 acres) of this new clearing was cleared in 2018, one 12 months after Santana Agro was based, though the federal government has not made public who owns this plot. If all of the forest throughout the newly constructed border is cleared, then roughly 3,100 hectares (7,700 acres) of protected forest stands to be misplaced.
In line with one supply throughout the Preah Vihear provincial administration, who spoke on situation of anonymity as they weren’t licensed to talk to the press, this new clearing is certainly a brand new ELC and belongs to Santana Agro.
There was no authorities announcement relating to the issuance of a brand new ELC, and environmental, agricultural and native officers declined to touch upon the matter. Because the land is protected, it could’t be purchased or rented privately, that means that any clearing of forest may solely occur with authorities approval. Nonetheless, the federal government hasn’t introduced any new switch of state-public land to a personal proprietor relating to this clearing.
Likewise, it’s not identified whether or not the land, an ELC in all however title, will probably be for cashew plantations, or for rubber just like the neighboring ELCs. However based on the Santana Agro worker, the corporate can also be concerned within the rubber enterprise.
“The cashew enterprise has not been very worthwhile,” he instructed reporters. “The rubber enterprise brings in extra money.”
Strive Pheap is already rising rubber on the 9,916-hectare (24,503-acre) concession that sits instantly behind Santana Agro’s manufacturing facility, however the worker stated he didn’t know whether or not Kimsan and Strive Pheap have been nonetheless working collectively.
Kimsan dismissed satellite tv for pc imagery of the clear-cutting in Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary despatched to him by reporters by way of messaging app Telegram and stated the clearing has nothing to do with Santana Agro.
“The Santana firm doesn’t personal a single hectare of ELC,” he stated. “I actually have no idea the place you bought this info from. The Santana firm didn’t do something towards the nation’s legislation.”
However this info is in direct contradiction to Santana Agro’s own website, which states that the corporate’s plantation expanded from 1,000 hectares to greater than 4,000 hectares (2,470 to 9,900 acres) “and has not too long ago secured the Deforested Financial Land Concession (ELC) from the Authorities of 12,000 [hectares, or 30,000 acres] for prime worth crops and bushes…”
Kimsan has since not responded to requests for remark, however different sources have additionally pointed to Santana Agro because the pressure behind this newest lack of forest in Beng Per.
Heng Sros, an environmental activist who has lengthy labored on forest safety points, additionally instructed Mongabay that he’d heard concerning the alleged new Santana Agro ELC in Beng Per from an worker of the corporate, who claimed it will be a brand new cashew plantation.
“I heard this a couple of 12 months in the past,” Sros instructed reporters in December 2023. “I’m actually involved about that case as the corporate appears to have gotten land that may have an effect on each the group protected space and the wildlife sanctuary.
“It’s a authorities failure on its responsibility to guard the nation’s pure sources in the event that they reduce land from a protected space and provides it to a personal firm with shut ties to the ruling social gathering,” Sros stated. “If the federal government doesn’t need public criticism about its actions, [it] ought to cease giving ELCs to these individuals, finish the granted licenses and replant the bushes.”
Banner picture: An unlimited chunk of protected forest is being carved out of Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary. Sources declare Santana Agro is accountable. Picture by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.
