- A mining company affiliated with powerful Cambodian officials and their families has carved out a chunk of a community forest in the country’s northeast to be privatized.
- Community members say the company, Lin Vatey, is logging the forest, while community members who have complained or resisted have faced persecution by the authorities.
- Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest, officially recognized in 2017, spans 4,153 hectares (10,262 acres); Lin Vatey has laid claim to 2,447 hectares (6,047 acres) of it.
- When questioned by Mongabay, officials at various levels of government initially denied there was anything going on in the community forest, before conceding that some complaints had been lodged.
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — Rain poured down in torrential sheets as Ouk Mao guided reporters through the winding dirt tracks that were, in August, rutted with deep trenches of mud and rainwater as Cambodia’s wet season began in earnest.
Thunder cracked across the largely flat plains of Stung Treng province, in Cambodia’s northeast, and Mao joked about getting struck by lightning as he led Mongabay to the foot of Phnom Chhngok, a limestone mountain some 45 kilometers (28 miles) west of the provincial capital.
Since 2020, the mountain, swaddled in forest and home to a flock of bats, had served as the centerpiece to an ecotourism venture that was run largely by the Indigenous Kuy ethnic group to which Mao belongs. Some 400 people, many of them Kuy, helped preserve the forest and run the ecotourism destination as part of the Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest, a 4,153-hectare (10,262-acre) patch of forest and mountains that were, until recently, managed by the community.
But all of this changed when a mining company tied to the Cambodian military began to expand operations across Phnom Chum Rok Sat earlier this year.
“The big trees are all gone now,” said Mao, pointing to a pile of recently felled timber that the community forest committee confiscated from loggers operating in Phnom Chum Rok Sat in May.
“Before, all that land belonged to the community forest,” Mao said. “Then Lin Vatey came, they were scouting for a mining site.”
Lin Vatey, a local marble mining company established in 2019, began a six-month survey of Phnom Chum Rok Sat in 2020, according to local residents. Then, in 2022, it was awarded 700 hectares (1,730 acres) of the community forest.
“When our community went on patrol, they began seeing koy-yun” — small tractors often used to transport timber — “all carrying timber out of the forest into the company’s land,” Mao said. “This began around the end of 2021.”
Community forests are created through agreements between communities and the Forestry Administration, which sits under the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. In 2017, the government signed off on the creation of Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest, and Mao, among other residents of Chhvang village, formed the community forest’s committee, which patrolled and defended the forest, taking charge of how its resources were used.
But while contracts between a community and the Forestry Administration last 15 years, the government retains ownership of the land and of the resources above and below it — a weakness that Cambodia’s elite have been eager to exploit.
Until last year, Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest lay adjacent to Chhaeb-Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary, a much-beleaguered protected area. Then, in July 2023, the sanctuary’s borders were expanded, consuming the community forest in the process and creating competing jurisdictions between the Forestry Administration and the Ministry of Environment. Despite a relatively contained mining site lifting chiseled blocks of limestone and marble out of the ground at the base of other mountains within the community forest, Mao and other residents of the community forest told Mongabay that deforestation has spiked since 2021 — a trend reflected in Global Forest Watch data.
But it was in May 2024 that a boundary began to be cut through the community forest, creating a barrier roughly 12 meters (39 feet) wide; at some points piling mud and rocks high enough to block access, at others digging a shallow trench to prevent vehicles crossing. By early July, the new border in Phnom Chum Rok Sat had encircled a section of the forest spanning more than 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres).
Military families move in
On June 2, concerned community members wrote to the government’s working group for Stung Treng province requesting intervention. Their request references a letter labeled No. 1456 that was addressed to the Ministry of Environment on June 26, 2023, requesting 3,064 hectares (7,571 acres) of land be privatized, of which 2,447 hectares (6,047 acres) is part of Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest.
Community members said their copy of letter No. 1456 had since been seized by authorities, but they had used it as a reference to write their request for intervention. The Ministry of Environment has so far declined to share or publish the letter, although the new border created inside the forest matches the requested amount of land and a corresponding map seen by Mongabay. Letter No. 1456 is also referenced in a separate letter addressed to then-Stung Treng provincial governor Svay Sam Eang, dated July 6, 2023, in which a certain Ke Kol Sophea claims to represent people requesting permission to erect border posts around a 3,064-hectare plot of land in Chhvang village. Mongabay has obtained a copy of the letter but has not been able to verify the letter with Sophea or the Stung Treng provincial administration.
According to the request submitted to officials by the community, letter No. 1456 details a request for land from 10 individuals: Ke Kol Sophea, Vongsen Pisey, Vongsen Piseth, Long Molica, Kongkea Norphealey, Kongkea Razana, Sok Chandara, Him Sorsam, Kol Sopha and Ret Sokuntheary.
Two of the names listed in the letter appear in Ministry of Commerce records for Lin Vatey, the mining company already operating in the forest. Ke Kol Sophea is listed as Lin Vatey’s chair, while Vongsen Pisey is listed as a director at the company. Li Zhong Hua, the third and final director of Lin Vatey, was not named in letter No. 1456 but appears to be the only member of the board with any mining experience as he chairs Zhen Xing Hong Ye Stone Minerals. By contrast, neither Sophea nor Pisey are typical mining company executives.
Pisey is the daughter of Vong Pisen, commander-in-chief of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) — arguably one of the most powerful men in the country and a close ally of the ruling Hun family. Pisen’s brother, Vongsen Piseth, was also named in letter No. 1456.
Ke Kol Sophea, meanwhile, is an influential voice in Cambodia as director-general of Nokor Wat Media, a largely pro-government online media outlet. Sophea often uses that platform to support the long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party. Her husband, Brigadier General Touch Kongkea, serves as deputy director of the RCAF’s intelligence and research department.
Him Sorsam, who community members say was named in letter No. 1456 to the Ministry of Environment, also serves in the military intelligence department, as a lieutenant colonel, having previously worked as a Nokor Wat Media journalist.
Sophea and Kongkea’s daughters, Kongkea Norphealey and Kongkea Ranaza, were also listed in the letter requesting land from the community forest, alongside Nokor Wat Media deputy director-general Long Molica, Nokor Wat Media journalist Kol Sopha, and Sok Chandara, a lawyer who has filed complaints against community members on behalf of Lin Vatey.
Sophea, Norphealey, Ranaza and Molica are all listed as board members for Preah Vishnu Impex, the parent company of Nokor Wat Media, where Chandara worked as a journalist before practicing law. Chandara’s home address listed by the Cambodian Bar Association matches the residential address listed for Sophea, Norphealey and Rananza in commerce records for Preah Vishnu Impex. Molica’s home address listed in Preah Vishnu Impex’s commerce records matches another residential address given for Sophea in other company listings, suggesting all four share at least two home addresses.
None of the contact details listed in government records for Lin Vatey or the company’s directors were operating when Mongabay attempted to reach out with detailed questions about their activities in Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest. Similarly, emails and calls to addresses and numbers listed for Chandara, Norphealey and Ranaza by the Cambodian Bar Association went unanswered, and when reporters sent questions over the messaging app Telegram, Chandara deleted them, while Norphealey and Ranaza ignored them.
Silencing critics and clearing out the forest
While sheltering from the rain, Mao explained how he was no longer a member of the Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest. He’d moved to another village some 50 km (30 mi) away in 2020, but through his work as a journalist for local news and his connections to the community forest committee, he kept an eye on what was happening.
Mao was questioned by military police on June 15. He recalled how plainclothes officers turned up at his house the night before and demanded he attend a meeting about his reporting on the loss of the community forest.
“They brought me a letter and told me I needed to go to the military police headquarters in Stung Treng the following day,” he said. “I was interrogated at 8 a.m. but after they questioned me, they locked me in the room and left me there until 5 p.m.”
The questions pertained to why he had gone to the forest to take photos of excavators working on land that now appears to belong to Lin Vatey and the powerful individuals connected to it.
“I told them that I was only there as a journalist and that the community forest committee had asked me to see what was happening,” Mao said.
He said the committee contacted him in May because he knew the forest and they hoped his reporting could draw attention to the destruction being wrought upon their community forest. They warned him that military police officers were guarding the forest and manning checkpoints to prevent the community from crossing the border.
At the time, the elected leader of the community forest committee was Moeung Ratha, a member of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) and a former district councilor. “In May, Ratha confiscated timber cut from the community forest by Lin Vatey and he brought it to the community’s ecotourism office,” Mao said. “He had a team of 18 community members helping to transport the timber out to the office. After he did that, he was questioned by military police.”
A few days later, on June 26, Ratha was arrested and sent to pretrial detention on charges of clearing state-owned land, according to documents from the Stung Treng provincial prosecutor seen by Mongabay.
Ratha remains in prison awaiting trial. Other members of the community forest quickly fled.
“Sovanna” previously worked with the community forest and spoke to Mongabay under a pseudonym, citing fears that Lin Vatey would use the local authorities to intimidate critics. These fears appear well-founded. Mao was evicted from his house in July, despite having moved to a different commune in Stung Treng province, and is set to stand trial on Sept. 17 on charges of incitement and clearing state-owned forest.
Sovanna fled Stung Treng province after being questioned by military police and learning that Chandara, one of the lawyers connected to Lin Vatey, had filed a complaint alleging community members had defamed Lin Vatey.
Sovanna said they had been a member of the community forest since 2014, before it was officially recognized in 2017. Back then, they conducted unofficial patrols to preserve the forest and eventually managed to gain the legal recognition needed to form a community forest.
“There were many old, valuable trees, even some rosewood years ago, but now it’s rapidly disappearing,” Sovanna said. “There were huge trees before the community forest was even created, the big trees were why we created the community [forest protection organization] in 2014.”
Another Cambodian forest set to vanish
But the community’s decade of efforts to preserve Phnom Chum Rok Sat have been undermined by Lin Vatey, despite international support.
Phnom Chum Rok Sat’s ecotourism efforts were supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and WWF-Cambodia, among other donor partners whose names adorn every sign that details the map of the community forest.
“We saw lots of foreigners coming, they were running some sort of conservation project,” said one farmer who requested anonymity as he lived in close proximity to the community forest and didn’t want himself or his family to be a target of Lin Vatey.
“But the Chinese mining company [Lin Vatey] came in with soldiers and kicked out the foreigners, since then, the forest is disappearing,” the farmer said. “If you’re a foreigner, they won’t let you into the forest anymore. It’s only the employees of the company that can get in, nobody else is allowed.”
The farmer said many tourists, both domestic and international, had visited the site and that they couldn’t understand why the company needed the whole forest when such a small area was being mined for marble.
“We Kuy people are not allowed to go into the forest, the company owns it now and has taken all of the big trees,” he said. “We know this mountain very well, we used to help [guide] tourists when they visited.”
The buzzing of chainsaws could be heard as the farmer spoke to Mongabay. He shrugged when asked about it.
“We can hear them cutting the timber in the community forest every day and night,” he said. “They’re working all the time to clear the forest, but the Ministry of Environment rangers only ever arrest people trying to clear some land to farm, never the loggers in the community forest. The timber trucks can move freely. This dry season, loggers have taken so much from the forest here.”
No help coming
The logging looks set to continue as intervention from local authorities seems unlikely while national ministries remain silent on the fate of the forest.
Khom Saram, chief of Sam’Ang commune, where the community forest is located, initially denied anything was happening to the forest, before conceding that numerous concerned residents had complained to him that Lin Vatey had been logging since 2022.
“The community forest has not been dissolved, it still functions,” Saram said when asked about the future of the forest. “I cannot say anything more about this at the moment. We’re seeking a solution and waiting to see how negotiations go.”
Negotiations, he said, were ongoing with the Ministry of Environment, but neither the environment nor mining ministries responded to repeated requests for comment.
Men Kong, the Stung Treng provincial administration’s spokesperson, also denied that anything was happening in the community forest and claimed there was no connection between Lin Vatey and the apparent privatization of land by Lin Vatey’s directors and their families.
When reporters pointed out the privatized land included the land Lin Vatey is mining, Kong then claimed the land wasn’t part of the community forest. He was then sent the 2017 agreement between the Phnom Chum Rok Sat community and the Forestry Administration.
Kong then said he didn’t have information about the defunct ecotourism venture, Lin Vatey’s checkpoints or the border built around the land requested for privatization, before suggesting that aggrieved residents should complain to local authorities.
“Yes, we had reports from villagers saying there are people started [using] the land [in Phnom Chum Rok Sat],” he responded when asked if he’d received any complaints.
Kong insisted that Lin Vatey was operating legally and that the privatization of 3,064 hectares of the Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest was legal too, but wouldn’t expand on this or answer questions about the ongoing logging documented by the community and by reporters.
“I’m sad to see the forest gone,” said Mao, who maintained he has the right to document the destruction of the country’s forests as a journalist. “I can see forests are vanishing everywhere in Cambodia, especially over the last five years,” he said.
The forests, he noted, are not just a source of timber for community houses, but serve as a source of water after rainy season, support agriculture, and protect the community against natural disasters.
“I tried to protect them for the nation, not out of any self-interest,” Mao added. “Even the king called on people to protect the forest, so I answered the call.”
Banner image: Lin Vatey has cleared swathes of Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest as the former ecotourism site has been privatized. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.
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