Clockwise from top left: Award-winning environmental activist Ouch Leng, environmental activist Heng Sros, CYN youth program coordinator Out Latin, environmental activist Men Mat, environmental activist Tat Oudom

Six environmental activists are being questioned by Stung Treng provincial authorities today after they were taken into custody on Saturday morning while conducting investigations into illegal logging.

Ouch Leng, Heng Sros, Tat Oudom, Out Latin, Met Mat and one other person were arrested by mixed armed forces officers Saturday morning in Stung Treng’s Sesan district, after which their location was unknown for around 12 hours. The six were later moved to the provincial police headquarters and are still being questioned by authorities as of Sunday morning.

Leng is a prominent forest defender and won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2016. Sros, Mat and Odom are environmental activists, while Latin works for a local civil society group, Cambodian Youth Network. Leng and Sros were previously arrested in 2021 and 2020 in Kratie province for investigating illegal logging inside the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary.

Activists and journalists have documented increased deforestation activity within the Veun Sai-Siem Pang National Park, where the six activists were detained and where there is a government-granted Economic Land Concession (ELC) given to a company named T.S.M.W in 2022, as well as a mining license to a company named Green Wood Development. The ELC granted to T.S.M.W contravened a government 2012 moratorium on issuing new ELCs, which have been linked to mass evictions, rapid deforestation and extraction of other natural resources.