Cambodia’s only U.N.-backed carbon trading scheme is still nowhere near making any money for communities and logging in the area continues to threaten the very forests supposed to generate tens of millions of dollars over the next 30 years, community representatives and officials in charge of the scheme say.
The NGO Pact has been working with the government to turn 68,000 hectares of forest in Oddar Meanchey province into a money-making venture since 2007 by selling the forest’s carbon credits to environmentally conscious firms in the West.
But the program has thus far been unable to secure any carbon credit buyers and Pact ceased funding for the scheme in July, leaving the communities low on funding to fight against illegal loggers. No deal has yet been made because the May 20 deadline that had been set for the government to sign off on it inexplicably came and went without a signature.
Pact country director Sarah Sitts said the missed deadline should not be repeated, as carbon credit sales were now essential in order to fund the project and protect the forest.
“We had hoped that there would be credit sales to support the ongoing implementation costs when [donor] funding ended [on July 31],” Ms. Sitts said.
“We hope the forestry administration will agree to the next offers to buy credits to provide critically needed implementation funding to the project; they have told us they are prepared to do so,” she added.
Leslie Durschinger, marketing agent at Terra Global Capital, the San Franciso-based firm responsible for sourcing and securing carbon credit sales for Oddar Meanchey’s carbon trading program, said the company was currently holding talks with some prospective buyers.
But “as carbon transactions require negotiations and sometimes a competitive tender process, it is difficult to predict when sales will occur,” Ms. Durschinger said in an email. “We hope to have some sales completed before year end.”
Under the U.N.-backed Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) scheme, carbon stored inside trees in 13 community forests is sold to firms to offset their impact on the environment, on the condition that the trees are not felled.
But communities living in Oddar Meanchey province’s protected forests say that illegal logging is still ongoing in the area and that the patrol units that are supposed to monitor illegal logging no longer have funds.
“Logging and forest clearance for land encroachment within the community forests is dramatically increased,” said Sa Thlai, head of the Oddar Meanchey Community Forest Network.
Mr. Thlai claimed that the most severely affected out of the 13 community forests, Rumduol Veasna, has seen some 4,000 of its 6,016 hectares of protected forest felled.
“Forests under the REDD program for carbon trading will be gone because of loggers, who vary from RCAF [Royal Cambodian Armed Forces] soldiers to migrants to local authorities,” he said, adding that some $10,000 a month was required to build bases and increase patrols to ward off loggers in the protected forests.
Lev Seth, chief of the Sangkruos Preychheu Community Forest, based in Anlong Veng district’s Anlong Veng commune, said that some in his region had lost hope in the REDD program but that activists in the area were continuing to risk their lives to patrol the forest.
“Some of the community members have lost hope because they have worked for so many years and spent their own money to protect the forest but received nothing,” he said.
“If we don’t have money, we cannot stop deforestation and the carbon trading project will fail for sure,” he continued, adding that activists in the area had received threats from soldiers not to patrol and report loggers.
Major General San Sear, deputy commander for RCAF’s Infantry Division 2, said that the military’s presence in the forests was approved by the government and denied allegations of illegal logging.
“We are here because Samdech Hun Sen approved for us to build bases to protect the country,” he said.
“Regarding the allegations, I would like to clarify that our soldiers do not fell trees within the forest because we need the trees to provide shade for us.”
