Cambodia's Unofficial Regime of Extraction: Illicit Logging in the Shadow of Transnational Governance and Investment

Abstract

Cambodia has recently demonstrated one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world. While scholars have long explored the drivers of tropical forest loss, the case of Cambodia offers particular insights into the role of the state where transnational governance and regional integration are increasingly the norm. Given the significant role logging rents play in Cambodia's post-conflict state formation, this article explores the contemporary regime and its ongoing codependent relationship with forested land. Insights are distilled from comparative analysis of illicit logging in two ethnographic case studies. Both involve foreign investments by state-owned companies -a Chinese-backed hydropower dam and Vietnameseowned rubber concessions -and both are nestled in prominent conservation landscapes that are managed with international donor support. Together, the cases reveal how Cambodia's current timber extraction regime works through the use and abuse of legal mechanisms associated with forest conservation and foreign investment projects, and the mobilization of elite alliances that log both for private gain and in service of the ruling party's interests. By implication, the government's remarkable facilitation of transnational projects for conservation and development must be reappraised and ultimately seen as constitutive of a predatory and extractive regime that continues to rely heavily upon illicit logging revenues.

Who Wants to Save the Forest? Characterizing Community-Led Monitoring in Prey Lang, Cambodia

“…Most monitors in Prey Lang relate similar accounts, as in other parts of Cambodia, where local people opposing illegal logging have experienced violent threats by government officials, armed forces, police, powerful businessmen, and employees (Milne 2015). Death threats and intimidation via phone calls are numerous.…”

“…In Cambodia, the community-concern or need is often the extraction of natural resources that are essential for the bio-cultural survival of forest-dependent people. This is because Cambodia is a highly biodiverse country with a very weak institutional conservation strategy (Clements et al 2010) and uncontrolled illegal timber extraction, in which the government, the FA, and powerful tycoons are complicit (Global Witness 2002;Milne 2015). This makes local communities vulnerable and provokes them to act for themselves.…”

“…These have led to a large scale agricultural conversion of forest land and extensive illegal logging operations outside the borders of the officially granted concession areas, which is in conflict with the land law, forestry law, and law on PAs. For further reading about Cambodia's politics of forest exploitation in the 1990s, see Le Billon (2000), Le Billon (2002), and Global Witness (2002), and for the 2000s, read Global Witness (2007) and Milne (2015). Since 1993, Cambodia's conservation strategies have focused on establishing PAs, but because of the poorly defined land and resource rights, weak governance and law enforcement, and the establishment of the PAs in populated areas of limited ecological significance, biodiversity conservation goals are not being met (Clements et al 2010).…”

“…This has created a conflict between the local groups who want to protect the forest and the groups who derive income from timber extraction. Village headmen and local authorities, with vested economic interests in the logging industry, often use verbal and physical threats to hinder actions to stop illegal loggers (Milne 2015;Cultural Survival 2016).…”

Forest Islands and Castaway Communities: REDD+ and Forest Restoration in Prey Lang Forest

“…By 1998 all forests outside of protected areas were granted as forest concessions to well-connected governors and Southeast Asian corporations [62]. This initiative provided none of the expected state-building revenue-generating effects; it was de-emphasized by 2001 [63] and replaced with ELCs.…”