Cambodia Hires U.S. Firm to Stem Illegal Logging

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises

http://forests.org/

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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Title: Cambodia Hires U.S. Firm to Stem Illegal Logging

Source: Reuters

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.

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