Conservation officials have confiscated a truck containing 20 cubic metres of illegally cut, luxury-grade timber from an economic land concession owned by the firm TTY Corporation, a district official said yesterday.

Kratie provincial officials seized the logs, along with two trucks and two cars on Monday and Tuesday, a Snuol district official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said.

“Now, the luxury wood and the trucks were impounded at the Wildlife Conservation Office and two cars were kept at Snuol district police station in order to prepare a lawsuit to the court,” the official said, adding that TTY officials were caught driving the truck from a protected area to the company’s concession in Kratie province.

Chhim Savuth, a senior investigator for the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said he was unfamiliar with the specific case but that in general, such crackdowns had had very little impact so far on rampant illegal logging in the region.

“A large area in the northeast, including community forests and wildlife conservation areas, were cut down, which led to extinction [of the forest],” he said.  

“But the criminals have not been arrested yet.”