Complaints about activities in forestry concessions that it funds has forced the
World Bank to investigate the effectiveness of its Cambodian forestry-related projects.
Late last month the World Bank's board of executive directors authorized an Inspection
Panel to investigate the Bank's five-year Forest Concession Management and Control
Pilot Project in Cambodia (FCMCPP).
In 2000, the Bank launched the $5 million project aimed at reforming Cambodia's forest
concession system through technical assistance to the government's forest administration
and logging concessionaires.
"The bank has clung to the notion that the mafia-style logging syndicates which
have ravaged Cambodia's forests can be reformed," forestry watchdog Global Witness
said in a statement released May 4. "The Inspection Panel provides the opportunity
to hold the bank to account for five years of blunders."
The Inspection Panel is a three-member body created in 1993 to provide an independent
forum for private citizens to voice concerns over World Bank-financed projects.
In 2004, an independent forest sector review concluded that Cambodia's logging concession
system should be abolished. Within two months of the review's release, however, FCMCPP
recommended the government approve six more logging concessions.
Villagers from four of these concessions, represented by NGO Forum, lodged complaints
about the concessionaire's activities to the Bank's Inspection Panel in February
this year.
The villagers lived in or around the concessions, which included both Cherndar and
Timas Resources in Preah Vihear province, Everbright CIG Wood in Kratie and Stung
Treng provinces, and Samraong Wood in Siem Reap and Oddar Meanchey provinces.
Global Witness director Simon Taylor said the bank must, at a minimum, "renounce
its project's endorsement of companies whose operations are a parody of sustainable
forest management."
"Furthermore, it should use this investigation as the basis for a fundamental
revision of its approach to forest management in post-conflict countries," Taylor
said.
World Bank president James Wolfensohn acknowledged the Bank's project had flaws during
a visit to Phnom Penh in February.
"We are taking another look [at the Bank's work on forestry] to see if we have
screwed up," he said.
Contact PhnomPenh Post for full article
Post Media Co LtdThe Elements Condominium, Level 7
Hun Sen Boulevard
Phum Tuol Roka III
Sangkat Chak Angre Krom, Khan Meanchey
12353 Phnom Penh
Cambodia
Telegram: 092 555 741
Email: [email protected]