O’chum district, Ratanakkiri province – Sitting atop the massive stump of a recently cut hardwood tree, Smean Kanun looked out over the spirit forest, which the Tampuon hill tribe communities of Tang Krapou and Nang Leh villages hold sacred.
“This is a holy place for us,” he said as his wife and daughter gathered leaves and plucked a forest crab from the rocks for cooking. “When the loggers destroy the forest, there will be disease and no more rain.”
On May 4, 120 villagers confronted about 40 workers to find out why they had moved into the forest two months earlier and have since been marking trees.
They learned that their forest was being used as part of the government’s attempt to secure 10,000 cubic meters of wood for the new National Assembly building.
And this spirit forest, which has provided the 85 families in the two villages with food, building material and resin, is only one area that will be affected.
Officials have termed the deal a special coupe, which allows the selective felling of trees. It has been located on the site of an old 60,000-hectare Taiwanese-owned logging concession in Ratanakkiri’s Voeun Sai, O’Chum and Taveng districts.
According to Mike Davis of environmental NGO Global Witness, logging concessions have, in theory, always been broken into about 25 smaller pieces called coupes.
When awarded a concession, companies are supposed to rotate through the coupes and then restart at the first, 25 years later, when the forest has had a chance to regenerate.
Ratanakkiri forestry administration head Khorn Saret said Heng Brothers Co Ltd, which has been charged with securing wood for the new National Assembly, will require only a “small area” of the former Hero Taiwan concession.
“Right now we have determined it will be 10,000 hectares, and we will decide later whether that is enough,” he said Monday.
However, because of the extensive damage caused by Hero Taiwan during its possession of the forest, Khorn Saret predicted more land would be needed.
Throughout May, he said, workers inventoried and marked trees in several areas including around Tang Krapou and Nang Leh villagesÑfor the forestry administration.
Environmental and social impact assessments were also conducted in three communes with several more still to be done, and while many were worried, he said they shouldn’t be.
“They are afraid we will log the same way as Hero Taiwan,” he said. “But I do not think it will be damaged so much. [Hero Taiwan] did not have good management.”
Neither Khorn Saret nor provincial Governor Kham Khoeun knew when the logging would begin.
Kham Khoeun said he felt that harvesting the massive amount of wood for the Assembly from Ratanakkiri was the right decision. However, he added that he had ordered that spirit forests be excluded from the areas for felling.
Kham Khoeun said he would enlist local communities to work with the environment and agriculture departments to monitor the logging company as he did with Hero Taiwan.
“If they do anything wrong, they will report to me and I will take measures against them,” he said.
There has been a moratorium on logging concessions since December 2001, and maintaining the ban is one of the main benchmarks international donors stipulated during December’s Consultative Group meeting.
But while local officials insist the annual coupe does not break the moratorium, Mogens Christensen, chairman of the donor-established Technical Working Group on Forestry and Environment, disagreed Wednesday.
Christensen said cutting any wood would break a key agreement the government made to donors and could impact how much aid the country will see in the future.
“At the last CG meeting, the coupes were talked about but nothing was decided,” he said. “It will be discussed again at the next CG meeting.”
But one agreement with donors may have already been broken.
In March, forestry officials started appearing around Phak Nam village in Voeun Sai district, and a meeting was called on April 1, village chief Kham Paleb said Saturday.
At the meeting, the officials explained that the forest where Hero Taiwan had been cutting was part of the new coupe to be used for the new Assembly building.
Villagers, however, insisted that they be told the history and background of any new company coming to take trees.
“Using the logs for the government’s needs is OK, but they must inform the villagers,” Kham Paleb said. “If they do this secretly, it means they are coming to rob the trees.”
In addition, the villagers insisted that before cutting, the new company must honor Hero Taiwan’s outstanding debt of a village hall that was promised but never delivered. The provincial forestry administration officials rejected the demand, Koh Peah commune council member Orn Luy said. “They said local villagers have no right to control the trees,” he said.
Shortly after, workers arrived and transported three truckloads of old logs about 20, the villagers said out of the site, Orn Luy said.
Angered by the removal, villagers surrounded a fourth truck and refused to let it leave until the nine logs that had been piled on it were left behind.
“The villagers demanded that we be informed before anything happen,” Kham Paleb said.
Provincial forestry administration head Khorn Saret said that Ly Chhoung Construction Co the company building the Assembly had paid royalties to the government for the old logs and had permission to move them.
Earlier this year, the government partially reversed a ban on the transport of old logs, allowing 6,208 logs about 20,000 cubic meters of timber to be moved.
But Robert Tennent, forestry project manager for government forestry monitor Societe Generale de Surveillance, said that the old Hero Taiwan logs were not supposed to be moved.
SGS would investigate, he said.
On Tuesday, 120 villagers gathered to watch the 40 workers who have spent two weeks marking trees in the forest near Tang Krapou and Nang Leh villages, and then dispersed peacefully.
But Tampuon communities won’t be the only ones protecting the trees, said local villager Smean Kanun.
“This forest will not allow anyone to cut it,” he warned.
