Rumbling south down a rutted dirt track in the western Cambodian province of Pursat, past prone excavators and makeshift worker encampments, the green slopes of the Cardamom Mountains loomed suddenly from around the bend.
In early April, days before Khmer New Year, Cambodia’s most celebrated holiday, the access road on which we traveled was all but abandoned, and checkpoints into the Stung Meteuk hydropower dam remained unmanned. Hugging the Thai border, the road runs a bumpy, hilly and desolate 65 kilometers (40 miles) from Pursat province’s Thma Da commune down to Pak Khlang commune in Koh Kong province, with few signs of life along the way.
Here, in this remote stretch of mountainous rainforest, history appears to be repeating itself as Mongabay has uncovered illegal loggers operating under the cover of hydropower construction.
