Angkor Plywood the timber cartel shipping Cambodian forests internationally
{Earth and Leaf Editorial – Illegal logging in Cambodia – Angkor Plywood, the timber cartel shipping Cambodian forests internationally}
{extract below}
Angkor Plywood the timber cartel shipping Cambodian forests internationally
Angkor Plywood, the timber cartel shipping Cambodian forests internationally
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — Rare timber species likely logged from Cambodia’s embattled protected forests have been exported to Vietnam and China for years by Angkor Plywood, one of the country’s most notorious logging companies, Mongabay can reveal.
Over a year-long investigation, Mongabay has acquired documents and testimonies, as well as photo and video evidence, that show Angkor Plywood has been illegally logging timber from Cambodian protected areas and violating various laws by exporting sawn logs internationally. The company has done this for years with impunity, in part due to the connections of the company’s management.
Angkor Plywood was established by its chairman, Chea Pov, a man who has worked his way up Cambodia’s timber business, in 2011 with Taiwanese national Lu Chu Chang. The latter previously headed the Cambodian Timber Industry Association and developed a reputation in the early 2000s for illegally felling protected resin trees belonging to Indigenous communities.
Together, Pov and Chang have built a timber empire focusing on the beleaguered Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, a nearly 490,000-hectare (1.2-million-acre) lowland rainforest in northern Cambodia. Its flat topography and proximity to numerous transit arteries, coupled with the sanctuary’s rich mineral deposits and formerly lush forests, have made it a lucrative target for loggers and miners.
Mongabay has previously uncovered logging routes and timber trails that lead back to Think Biotech, another company chaired by Chang that owns a 34,000-hectare (84,000-acre) concession on the eastern border of Prey Lang in Kratie province. (Think Biotech changed its name to Holy Plantation in December 2023, according to commerce ministry records.)