"Cambodian environment minister bans logging at tycoon’s Cardamoms hydropower project", 30 September 2024

In a rare move to combat forest crimes, Cambodian Environment Minister Eang Sophalleth … banned all forest clearance at the site of a dam project in the country’s southwest.

The ban came after multiple incidents of illegal logging inside a protected area were reported, …, in connection to the Stung Meteuk hydropower project in Koh Kong and Pursat provinces.

However, activists monitoring the logging operations on the ground remain skeptical over the efficacy of the ban, noting that timber processing continues at the site of the hydropower project.

In a letter … addressed to Ly Yong Phat, chair of Steung Meteuk Hydropower Co. Ltd., Sophalleth ordered the company to temporarily suspend its activities related to clearing forest for the 150-megawatt dams’ reservoirs, as well as the processing of logged timber.

After forest crimes were reported to him by the Pursat provincial environmental department, Sophalleth’s letter detailed the numerous incidents of illegality linked to the $440 million hydropower project, including transporting timber without permission, logging and collecting timber outside of the designated areas, as well as transporting and processing timber without paying taxes.

… The company in question is one of the many controlled by infamous tycoon and ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat, once dubbed the “King of Koh Kong” in a leaked diplomatic cable, whose wealth has largely derived from a range of environmentally and socially destructive businesses across the southwest of Cambodia. Natural resources from timber to sand have buoyed the senator’s influence within Cambodia’s ruling party, where he sits as a member of the central party committee and has been entrusted with numerous infrastructure projects, of which Stung Meteuk is just the latest…