The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has rebuffed villagers’ attempts to get information about the logging concessions near their homes, four community representatives said on Tuesday.
The four villagers, from different communities near forests in Stung Treng, Kratie and Mondolkiri provinces, traveled to Phnom Penh last week to ask the ministry for copies of the concession management plans that logging companies are required to draft and submit. By law, the plans must be released on request.
But the ministry refused their requests. Ministry officials would not even accept the villagers’ letter requesting the documents, the villagers said.
“We are worried about the effect on our lives if the logging companies are allowed to log in our communities,” said Pa Samphan, 29, a Phnong ethnic minority member from Mondolkiri.
Commercial logging in the country’s concession areas was banned by a moratorium that began on Jan 1. Officials have said logging companies may resume cutting once their management plans, showing the sustainability of their methods, are approved.
“We would like the Ministry of Agriculture and the government to give us maps and documents related to the logging companies and how they might affect our daily lives,” Pa Samphan said.
The forest is valuable to the villagers, he said, and they don’t want to see it disappear. “We collect fruit, rattan, vines and resin from the forest,” Pa Samphan said.
Conservationists recently complained that they, too, have been denied access to the management plans, many of which have already been submitted by the companies to the ministry.
An estimated 3 million Cambodians—one-fourth of the population—live within 30 km of a logging area.
