Vietnam facilitates trade in illegal logs, says watchdog group

VIETNAM/CAMBODIA: An environmental watchdog has accused Vietnamese government and military officials of taking payoffs to ignore vast smuggling of lucrative lumber from neighbouring Cambodia.

Millions of dollars in bribes have been paid by Vietnamese timber traders to both Vietnamese and Cambodian officials, the report issued yesterday by the UKbased Environmental Investigation Agency alleges.

It says the Vietnamese officials are paid off in exchange for granting import quotas for the timber and Cambodians are paid to open up logging areas and smuggling routes. The logging itself in Cambodia is often illegal, taking place in protected areas such as national parks. Cambodia has banned the export of logs and since early 2016 has closed its border with Vietnam to timber as well. However, Vietnam has official quotas for such imports, which are also taxed.

Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not respond to AP’s request for comment on the report. Sear Ra, deputy chief of Cambodia’s Forestry Administration, noted that such exporting was stopped 2016, and if it had happened since then, it would have been done secretly and illegally.

Cambodia has one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, much of it because of illegal logging and corrupt land deals. Much of the timber trade is protected by military units that profit from deals with the loggers.

Vietnam’s official quotas facilitate the smuggling from Cambodia and even allows Vietnam to profit by taxing the smuggled logs, the report says. -AP