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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

Cambodia to Ban Logging in Cardamom Mountains

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

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05/28/00

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

Cambodia has announced plans to place the Cardamom mountains in

southwestern Cambodia off limits to loggers. The area contains

several rare and unique species of wildlife, including Siamese

crocodiles, thought to be extinct in the wild. They join the league

of nations that realize that preservation of pristine forests is in

their national interest.

g.b.

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Title: Cambodia to ban logging in Cardamom Mountains

Source: Copyright 2000, Associated Press. All Rights Reserved

Date: May 27, 2000

The Cambodian government plans to declare a pristine mountain range

off limits to loggers, a move that would save unique wildlife recently

discovered by conservationists, an environmental group reported today.

A pledge to ban logging in the Cardamom Mountains, located in

southwestern Cambodia near the border with Thailand, was made to

foreign donors at an annual aid meeting in Paris, Global Witness said

in a statement.

The London-based group, which is contracted by the government and paid

by donors to be an independent logging watchdog, quoted Agriculture

Secretary of State Chan Tong Yves as stating a "firm intention to

conserve this area for posterity."

"We are completing studies that will define an area, currently under

forestry concession, for preservation," Chan Tong Yves was quoted as

telling donors.

Prime Minister Hun Sen and senior Cabinet officials are in Paris for

the meeting, which ended in a $548 million aid pledge from donors.

An official in Phnom Penh could confirm only that the government was

considering a ban, saying the decision was supposed to rest on an

upcoming biodiversity report by Flora and Fauna International, a

conservation group exploring the mountain range.

"It's not surprising," Forestry Director Ty Sokhun said. "This is one

of the alternatives that we had considered."

Global Witness praised the move, saying "the value of preserving the

Cardamoms dwarfs, in every sense, the returns of commercial logging."

Flora and Fauna International has documented several rare and unique

species of wildlife in the Cardamom range. In March, the group

announced it had found three Siamese crocodiles, a reptile previously

believed to be extinct in the wild.

The Cardamom range was one of the last bastions of Khmer Rouge

guerrilla fighters, who used the mountainous jungles to hide from a

stronger government army.

When the guerrillas finally surrendered in 1998, the area opened to

conservationists for the first time since the 1960s.

But peace also made the range available to timber companies, who

quickly signed logging deals with the cash-strapped government.

Flora and Fauna International has been pushing for the mountains to be

declared a national wildlife park.

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