Original subtitles

The illegal timber trade is worth up to 100 billion dollars a year,

double the annual revenue of all of Macau's casinos put together.

It has funded warlords and genocidal regimes,

and has powerful allies in very high places.

Cambodia is one of the centres of illegal timber production,

where unlawful timber barons have created their own private kingdoms,

making millions in the process.

It's an absolutely massive amount of money,

and who can turn it down,

especially in a poverty stricken country like this.

A growing group of activists are fighting against the illegal loggers.

But with millions of dollars at stake,

the logging cartels are willing to bribe, bully and even kill!

Cut off from the world during the 1970s and '80s...

...because of civil war,

Cambodia's rainforests lourished...

...while those of neigbouring countries succumbed to the chainsaw.

But the '90s changed all that.

The government gave out basically all the forest...

...to foreign companies...

...and it was all a gigantic mess.

Companies running all over the place, no control, no law,

military involved, government forced logging.

Cambodia was on a downward environmental spiral,

and the government was forced to step in and step up.

Cambodia has very good, very strong laws on forestry.

Both under the constitution,

which there are laws which protects resin trees...

...and the forest products,

things that indigenous in forest community rely on.

Unfortunately, this is not being followed,

if the law is being followed, there wouldn't be any problem here.

Today, Cambodia, once rich with lush tropical forest,

has only 3 percent of its primary forest remaining.

Despite the strict laws,

Cambodia has a mighty battle on its hands.

Unfortunately since 2008, we are going backwards,

we are going back into the old ways rapidly.

We have high level organized illegal logging...

...and I am not talking about some villagers...

...cutting down some trees here and there.

It's a gigantic timber grab.

With the average wage of a Cambodian being 20 dollars a day,

illegal logging is an easy way to earn good money,

not just for the loggers, but for everyone involved.

Illegal loggers often work in small teams,

with just two drivers and two lookouts accompanying the tree fellers.

Such teams work surprisingly efficiently...

...as long as they remember to spread the wealth around.

With so many people taking a cut from the lucrative logging pie,

protecting the business soars to new levels.

And it is the bigger companies that have more to lose.

On government-leased land,

clearing forest to develop agriculture is actually legal.

The resulting timber can even be sold.

But when the legal timber runs out,

loggers turn to Cambodia's protected forests...

...to make their money,

often under the guise of another project.

We have one example with the dam permit...

...that was given out in the cardamom mountains.

But the company was basically collecting rosewood...

...from all over the mountain, which are protected area.

And conservative estimates saying that action alone netted them...

...around 200 to 250 million dollars.

With more money to lose if they get found out,

the larger illegal logging cartels go that extra mile...

...to protect their assets.

In fighting this, you are actually dealing with people...

...who's willing to commit illegal activities.

When it become gangs or a groups of gangs...

...willing to arm themselves,

willing to corrupt the judges,

willing to corrupt the police, willing to corrupt the military.

You are actually dealing with a dangerous group.

Those who get in their way are harassed, intimidated,

threatened or worse.

In September 2012, a journalist who had often reported...

...on illegal logging activity was killed.

Hang Serei Oudum had written a string of exposes about forest crimes...

...involving the social elite and powerful officials.

His last story accused a military police commander's son...

...of smuggling logs in military plated vehicles...

...and extorting money from others who were illegally transporting wood.

Hang Serais body was found in the trunk of his own car...

...with two axe wounds to the head.

Well, here is the problem with deforestation.

It's actually an illegal activity...

...and because it is an illegal lucrative activity,

many of these people responsible...

...for clearing the forest and selling timbers,

are actually behaving like drug cartels.

Others who have taken on the illegal logging industry...

...have also died under mysterious circumstances.

Uncovering the truth behind their deaths involves going deep...

...into the country's shadowy network of corrupt officials,

powerful timber barons and dangerous criminals.

Koh Kong Province, Cambodia.

April 2012.

48-year-old conservation environmentalist Chut Wutty...

...is found dead in his car.

A few feet away, a military police officer...

...by the name of In Rattana lies in a pool of blood.

It is clearly not the scene of an accident.

With no witnesses, investigators turn to the dead man for clues.

Chut Wutty was a well-known activist.

He had fearlessly taken on...

...some of Cambodia's biggest logging warlords.

Over the course of 15 years,

this young Khmer environmentalist had made some powerful enemies.

He was the only person that was prepared to stand up and speak his mind...

...and speak the truth,

educating villagers who knew nothing about their rights under the law.

Chut Wutty had been investigating...

...the 100 billion dollar-illegal timber industry...

...for 15 years...

...and he didn't like what he found.

Powerless to take on the logging warlords directly,

Wutty encouraged local villagers to stand up for what was theirs,

the forests.

The forests were a lifeline for thousands of villagers across Cambodia,

giving them products like honey, resin and rattan.

With the forests disappearing in front of their eyes,

so was their livelihood.

The villagers at that time, they are getting no compensation,

absolutely zero.

They get a tiny poor land that some of them have, for growing rice,

and they don't know what to do.

These people don't have any education.

This was something that I heard from villager after villager.

I just don't know what to do.

I'm terrified.

We have lost everything.

Chut Wutty helped such desperate villagers fight back.

He would lead them in patrolling their local forests...

...in search of illegal timber dumps.

When they came across one,

it would be set ablaze in front of a ravenous media...

...looking for news.

Not only did this hit the loggers' profits,

it put the offending companies right in the spot light,

and publicity was the last thing they wanted.

Chut Wutty knew he was playing with fire.

He was fearless for sure, because he knew the rest,

he knew the people get killed over these things here,

enormous amount of money involved in illegal logging...

...and very well-connected, people involved in it.

Chut Wutty had already clashed with the timber barons several times,

but he didn't back down.

On April 12th 2013,

he was investigating suspected illegal logging...

...in a forest in western Cambodia when he was ambushed.

Police investigating the crime said

that Wutty had taken photos that could prove illegal logging.

They say that the police officer on the ground at the time, In Rattana,

had demanded Wutty hand over his camera's memory stick.

When Wutty refused, Rattana shot him.

Police went on to say that plagued with guilt,

Rattana then fatally shot himself...

...twice.

Friend and activist Chhim Savuth,

baffled by this inexplicable suicide of Chut Wutty's killer,

decided to carry out his own investigation.

Chhim Savuth's theory was that Chut Wutty had been shot,

not by Rattana, as the police claimed, but by a third man.

Rattana was simply a witness who needed to be silenced.

Well, the official explanation certainly doesn't hold water.

It's a joke.

Government came up with four different explanations,

one after another,

including one guy shot Wutty,

and then immediately out of remorse, he shot himself.

It's just nonsense.

When police reopened the investigation,

they maintained that Rattana had killed Chut Wutty.

But they arrested a man for the killing of In Rattana.

Two weeks after his conviction, Rattana's supposed killer walked free.

Chun Wutty's son is still waiting for justice...

...for his father.

Chut Wutty's murder made international headlines,

and was a heavy blow...

...to those fighting the ubiquitous illegal logging cartels.

Wutty achieved a lot.

How are you gonna replace this guy?

I mean, it takes three or four people to do what he can do on his own.

Following the death of Chut Wutty, villagers continue to fight back .

But when the enemy is a multi-million dollar industry,

it's not always clear what they can do.

Cambodia's illegal timber mostly goes to Vietnam...

...and, increasingly, China.

From source to destination,

the value of timber can multiply by over 10 times.

The grand prize of illegal logging is rosewood,

a commodity more valuable than oil.

A cabinet made from rosewoood can sell for over 20,000 dollars.

With Cambodia's supplies of rosewood drying up,

poor Cambodian villagers cross the border,

and hunt for it in Thailand's forests.

Illegal timber dealers will pay them a hundred dollars...

...for just the stump of a rosewood tree,

nearly half of what they earn as farmers in a year.

But to collect that money, they have to make it back alive.

Thailand is determined to protect its forests.

In the first half of 2012 alone,

nearly 40 Cambodian loggers were killed by Thai border patrols.

I mean, there are real wars going on at the Thai side,

at the Thai side of the border,

where Cambodian loggers, organized Cambodian loggers...

...crossed into Thailand and logged the last rose wood trees...

...in the national parks.

And there are regular shootouts with the Thai border patrols...

...and the Thai rangers.

Sometimes like 20 against 30.

It's really large scale stuff right now.

Because the rosewood is just the...

Like rhino horns, ivory, it's really high value stuff.

While illegal loggers risk their lives trying to smuggle logs...

...from across the border,

innocent villagers are risking their own lives...

...to protect the forests in their own back yards.

About a third of rural income comes from forest products,

income that is lost to illegal loggers clearing wide swathes of forest.

Fed up with the situation, villagers are taking a stand.

Action by villagers is having some effect.

But it's nowhere near enough to stop the illegal loggers.

Meanwhile, local and international pressure...

has resulted in the making of new laws and regulations,

designed to preserve Cambodia's forests.

As with all crime, the stakes are high.

Increasingly aware of the consequences of getting caught,

illegal logger Chheang Vuthy decided to get out before it was too late.

Chheang Vuthy has now turned his life around...

...and is working to destroy the very industry...

...that he invested most of his life in.

But with such deep pockets and contacts in high places,

captured illegal loggers are often able to play...

...their get out of jail free card.

That the money involved...

...is so large and large enough that probably you can buy,

just about anybody in Cambodia.

With that amount of money you can buy judges,

you can buy the protection of the military police,

you can buy quite significant amount...

Quite significant amount of influence.

Seeing the logging world stuck in a vicious circle...

...of money, power and corruption,

it is the hope of many campaigners...

...that people will simply come to their senses.

Can we return to the good old days?

The answer is probably not.

Can we protect what's remaining there?

I'm, I'm hopeful, I'm optimistic.

I think...

I think that as long as we continue to, to support them,

as long as the community themselves continue to fight,

I believe eventually, they can protect what remains a Prey Lang.