As an update to the article on logging that I wrote in my newsletter, I would like to share some encouraging news. Last week the Vientiane Times, the government-sanctioned English-language newspaper of Laos, published an article entitled Illegal logging continues in Laos. Using the example of the Savannakhet province in southern Laos, the article portrays illegal logging as a threat to development:
Illegal logging has become a critical issue in many provinces of Laos, creating obstacles for the country’s efforts to balance its development process with the need to protect the environment.
This is the beginning of what I’ve hoped for: increased awareness at all levels of the government (including the Prime Minister’s office, the highest political authority) of the dangers of excessive logging. Whether that attitude will filter down to provincial officials remains to be seen.
An interesting tidbit that I learned from the article:
The government also agreed to stop giving wood quotas to officials, including retired officials. In the past, some retired officials had sold their quotas to businesspeople, which caused problems in regulating the use of timber.
Policy changes have already made a difference in the Savannakhet province:
The Director of Savannakhet’s Agriculture and Forestry Department, Mr Boun-ay Nounouannavong, announced earlier this year that authorities had confiscated around 1,028 cubic metres of illegal timber belonging to villagers in Atsaphangthong district.
Last year, authorities confiscated around 1,200 cubic metres of illegal timber and arrested 23 offenders.
“People cut trees down illegally from the productive forests owned by villagers and the province, to sell to local businesses, and some of the timber came from protected areas,” he said.
He said business representatives encouraged the villagers to cut down trees by offering higher prices. For example, one cubic metre of a kayong tree was worth up to 1.2 million kip in some areas.
Some government officials also conspired with villagers to cut down trees in local forests, while others misrepresented to authorities the number of trees that had been cut down.
The article is currently available as free content from the Vientiane Times but may not be available in a few weeks. Contact me for the full text.
Does it bother anyone else that the quotation marks are left open? It kinda leaves me hanging. Is there a way to fix them?
Thanks for telling about this probllem of illegal logging there. What products do the farmers grow in your area there?How is your language proficiency now? We are busy and OK. Tomorrow we are going to Goshen and look forward to seeing the Ebersoles there and we will have lunch with Sarah.
Love, Grandpa
Farmers here grow mostly rice for their family to eat; some also grow cash crops for sale, like corn and peanuts. All the irrigated flatland for paddy rice fields was claimed a long time ago, and so the villages we work in (poor ones) tend to only have steep mountain slope farms. Slash and burn is quite common here – this month has been hazy because of all the burning forest farms.