Conversion Timber, Forest Monitoring, and Land-Use Governance in Cambodia
Publisher: Forest Trends
Date: 2015
Topics: Governance, Renewable Resources
Countries: Cambodia
In many countries, the accelerated clearing of forests for agricultural purposes has resulted in the rapid growth of so called “conversion timber” in recent years. This has fundamental implications for sustainable forest management (SFM) and the legality of domestic and international timber trade, as it is happening at a time when internationally sponsored programs, notably Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) and Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+), are promoted as strategies for ensuring that SFM is a reality.
In Cambodia, timber concessions for selective logging under forest management plans were effectively suspended indefinitely due to governance and complicance issues. However, Cambodia’s exports of value timber have continued, raising the question where this timber comes from if not from official forest concessions. Extensive media, civil society, United Nations, and technical reports indicate that the main source of wood harvested in Cambodia since mid-2004 consists of 1) “conversion timber” from forest lands allocated to large-scale agri-industrial plantations, and 2) illegally harvested timber from adjacent lands. As a matter of fact, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) itself has acknowledged that the conversion of forestland to large-scale agricultural plantations under ELCs has been the main driver of Cambodia’s deforestation.