Original report from Phnom Penh
01 September 2009
The beauty of the northeastern forests is apparent along the road through the province of Stung Treng all the way to Ratanakkiri. But the beauty only lasts in a 2-kilometer corridor along the road. Deeper than that, and the tall trees disappear.“This is the abandoned economic land concession,” Keo Mib, a 39-year-old Phnong hill tribesman said on a recent afternoon in Stung Treng’s Sesan district, pointing to a swath of cleared forest. “The company just left the land after they cleared the forest and took the valuable trees.”
Villagers in these northeastern provinces say they are losing their livelihoods and sacred forests, as more and more private enterprises take their forests.
“We depend on forest products for our living, but now there are almost no forests,” said Keo Mib, who has four children. “When we leave the village, there is only forest [concession] or economic land concessions.”
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