Cambodia Hires U.S. Firm to Stem Illegal Logging
10/24/97
OVERVIEW, SOURCE & COMMENTARY by EE
Independent monitoring and inspection of forest industry processes may
be a component of reforming clearly unsustainable resource
liquidation, as has been the case in the Cambodian forest sector.
Following is Reuters coverage of Cambodian government efforts to
address illegal logging by a number of multinational companies and
others.
g.b.
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Cambodia Hires U.S. Firm to Stem Illegal Logging
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyright 1997, Reuters, contact to reprint
Date: October 16, 1997
CAMBODIA HIRES U.S. FIRM TO STEM ILLEGAL LOGGING.
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PHNOM PENH, (Reuters) - The Cambodian government has hired Washington-
based Development Alternatives Inc. (DAI) to develop a system to stop
illegal logging and corruption in the forestry sector, government
officials said on Wednesday.
DAI will survey the country's forests by satellite and study ways to
set up a logging monitoring system, a senior forestry advisor said.
Another official, coordinator of the Forestry Secretariat, Hang Sun
Tra, said the contract was signed with the Finance Ministry on October
10 and said the study, to be done in conjunction with the forestry
department, could be completed early next year.
"We want to convince and gain the trust of the World Bank, the United
Nations and the IMF to support the government on forestry... and
increase government revenues from logging," he told Reuters.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said last month it had cancelled
a total of $60 million in loans to the Cambodian government since last
November, citing corruption in the timber sector.
Many donors to Cambodia have pressured the government to clean up
corruption in the industry, halt heavy logging, lift tax exemptions on
logging companies and improve accounting of forestry revenues.
The IMF had earlier recommended that the government hired a logging
monitoring company. It said the government had lost revenues of more
than $100 million due to illegal logging in 1996, equivalent to more
than a third of total budget revenue last year.
The World Bank, which takes its lead from the IMF, has declined to
renew a budgetary support programme.
While DAI was expected to recommend ways to rein in illegal logging,
the company has not yet agreed to implement a policy, agriculture
officials said.
Private companies have shunned requests to enforce Cambodia's forestry
policy.
The Swiss firm Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) was chosen to
monitor logging last year, but pulled out of the deal in January over
concerns it would be expected to enforce Cambodia's forestry policies.
Cambodia, once one of the world's most heavily forested countries, has
seen its forest cover halved since the 1970s, to roughly 30 percent of
the country from 74 percent two decades ago. Land in most of the
country's remaining forests, with the exception of several national
parks, have been awarded to private logging companies.