More than 300 activists took to patrolling the Prey Lang forest again for four days, March 23-26, to combat illegal logging. Dressed as Avatars from the blockbuster movie, members of the Prey Lang Network and the Cambodia Natural Resources Conservation group clashed with police and private security guards at a sawmill within Prey Lang forest.
Pok Hong is an Indigenous Kuy activist from Cambodia who has been a protagonist in the fight to save Prey Lang forest from illegal logging and rubber plantations. Read the following interview to get to know Hong and why the fate of Prey Lang forest matters. Special thanks to our campaign partners at the Prey Lang Network for sharing this interview.
We have just learned that the Cambodian Government has granted four more landconcessions in the core area of the Prey Lang forest. If these go ahead, it could mean“game over” for the forest, say Kuy community members who are struggling hard to protect the forest.
Ouch Sam On, a deputy governor of Cambodia's Kampong Thom province, told Prey Lang activists last week that he "would not be responsible if they were shot while protecting Prey Lang Forest," according to our campaign partners at the Prey Lang Network. The comment was made after Sam On ordered activists to desist their regular patrols through the forest, where they monitor for illegal logging. On their patrols, members of the Prey Lang Network regularly burn any wood they find that has been illegally cut down by loggers.
On February 17, the prime minister of Cambodia signed a sub-decree that protects 480,000 hectares of the Prey Lang forest as a conservation area. Local activists from the Prey Lang Network are celebrating the decision, but remain skeptical of the plans.
Human rights organizations and government institutions of Southeast Asia formed a joint statement after a four-day workshop in Bali, Indonesia, this past November. The workshop was convened by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission and organized by Forest Peoples Programme and Indonesian NGO SawitWatch, with participation of 60 individuals from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Cambodia.
Martin Cobin, age 91, lives in Louisville, Colorado.
Two community activists who have been outspoken against the illegal logging and land concessions within the Prey Lang forest in Cambodia are being targeted by local police. Roeun Sopheap and Sim Sean have reported patrols of police waiting outside their homes and have been living in hiding throughout the past month.
This short documentary about threats to the Prey Lang forest and the Kuy community’s efforts to protect it was produced by Cambodian student Kim Samath as part of the Southeast Asian Student Documentary Award Competition. To make her film, "Prey Lang - Fire of Light, Light of Hope," she traveled to the Prey Lang Forest to investigate how people live within Cambodia’s largest forest, which is under constant threat of deforestation.
See the film here:
Over 250 activists were confronted by police during a Buddhist prayer ceremony for the protection of Prey Lang forest in Cambodia. Held at the Angkor Wat complex on December 14th, the event was organized by the Prey Lang Network to call attention to the destruction occurring within the Prey Lang forest, an area that is currently under threat from 33 separate
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We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
