Cambodia licenses Panin Group to fell logs over large area

Cambodia licenses Panin Group to fell logs over large area

PHNOM PENH (AFP): The Cambodian government has approved a massive logging deal with an Indonesian timber company that gives the firm access to a large part of the remote, northeastern province of Ratanakkiri, government officials said yesterday.

The 50-year contract signed in mid-September will allow Indonesia's Panin Group to fell logs over 1.4 million hectares (3.5 million acres) -- roughly 15 percent of Cambodia's remaining forest.

But Chhea Song, secretary of state for the ministry of agriculture and forestry, said the contract requires Panin to submit a management plan for its logging activities that will make the operation ecologically sustainable.

"The concession process requires the company to make a clear inventory which is mentioned in the contract and agreed to by both sides and before they cut or fell any trees they need approval from the ministry," he said.

He said the concession area would be divided into 50 plots and logging would move from plot to plot each year.

The management and sustainability plan has not yet been submitted, Chhea Song said, but he added "If they don't follow the contract, they will be stopped."

An official with the Cambodian Investment Board (CIB) told the Cambodia Daily newspaper that the land covered in the concession covers "virtually the entire province" of Ratanakkiri and said he was "concerned" that such a large area would be given to one company.

"A concession of this size... is for me too big to be going to any individual company," the paper quoted CIB advisor Meng Srun Sin as saying.

The contract is the biggest logging contract awarded by the Cambodian government, which at the moment has a ban on new logging and the export of felled timber in place.

Under the terms of the new concession, none of the logs will be allowed to be exported in an unprocessed form, Chhea Song said.

"The government has told them they must make their furniture here so they can only export furniture and not logs," he said.

He said officials from the ministry had already looked at the plans for other Panin Group logging sites and found them to be satisfactory.

"We believe that this will be beneficial for the development of our country," Chhea Song said. "If we don't stop the anarchic cutting of trees, our forests will be destroyed."