Cambodia's King says Stop Logging for Hill People
12/17/97
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Headline: Cambodia's King says Stop Logging for Hill People
Source: Reuters
Date: 12/17/97
Copyright: Reuters Limited 1997
PHNOM PENH (Reuters) - King Norodom Sihanouk said on Tuesday widespread
logging in Cambodia's northeast must be stopped to protect ethnic minority
hill people.
The king suggested in comments released by the palace in Phnom Penh that
the government should grant land rights to the minority communities so they
could own their forests.
"I am absolutely against the deforestation of their territory," the king
wrote of the hill communities, most of which are in remote parts of
Ratanakiri and Mondolkiri provinces.
"The soaring deforestation of their territories has to be stopped if we
want our compatriots to still be able to survive with their own values
(belief, lifestyle, tradition, and with their various resources: forest,
fauna, watershed etc..)," the king wrote.
Environmental groups say logging in Cambodia is out of control and much of
the timber cut in the northeast is smuggled into neighbouring Vietnam.
The king said the minority communities should be granted the rights to own
their land.
"I am in favour of the distribution by our Royal Government of ownership
certificates related to their forest," the king wrote. "These certificates
should be given to the communities and not to individuals."
Cambodia's forests will be logged out within three to five years unless the
industry can be properly regulated, a British-based environmental group
said on Monday.
Representatives of the Global Witness group said in Phnom Penh that
uncontrolled logging appeared to have intensified since political turmoil
in July when co-Premier Hun Sen toppled his coalition partner, Prince
Norodom Ranariddh.
The International Monetary Fund suspended a budgetary support programme to
Cambodia earlier this year partly because of wasteful logging practices.