Study on Forest Revenues in Cambodia
Kim Sophanarith, 2005
Gifu University (Japan), 137 pp.


Various demands for forestlands, wood, goods and services to meet the rapid economic development and fast growing population have put great pressures on tropical forests. Tropical forests are important and potentially sustainable sources of revenue, yet forest or timber revenues in the tropics play a vital role in deforestation. Although forest revenues can serve as an incentive for better forest management, accurate information on forest revenues is essential for reducing tropical deforestation and improving tropical forestry management. Forests are among Cambodia’s most important and developmentally significant resources. According to the ADB, 2000, forest revenues accounted for about 14% and 5% of the total government revenues in 1994 and 1996, respectively.

Overall objectives of this study is analyzed the cases deforestation in different political regimes and estimate forest revenues in Cambodia based on available information on harvested wood, operable logging areas, and forestry taxes. For comparison purpose, revenues are analyzed under three scenarios i.e. business as usual (BAUSU), long-term economic gains (LEGA) and climate beneficial option (CLIBO). Data for this study was obtained from review data, and recent inventory data collected in central province of Kampong Thom were used to estimate wood product. This inventory was conducted in evergreen, mixed, and deciduous forests, the three major forest types where logging is permitted.

Deforestation in Cambodia may have caused by intensive bombardments during the war time, forest clearing for resettlements, wood extraction for re-construction of war-devastated infrastructures, agricultural cultivation, and indiscriminate logging in recent years. Additional to deforestation, forest degradation due to declining in growing stock declined may have resulted from indiscriminate felling and overexploitation. Cambodia would lose its important natural resource immediate actions to stop deforestation and forest degradation is no undertaken. Deforestation and forest destruction have strongly impacted forest revenues in Cambodia. Wood product under BAUSU scenario in Cambodia is estimated at about 1.6 million m3 per year, of which 0.7 million m3, 0.2 million m3 and 0.7 million m3 are from evergreen, mixed and deciduous forests, respectively. These estimates are within wood production previously estimated in Cambodia. Annual forest revenues from all forests are estimated $3 639, $5 095 and $6 550 per ha, and the country’s total annual revenues are estimated at $111.7 million, $156.3 million, $201.0 million under BAUSU, LEGA and CLIBO scenarios, respectively. These results are also within the range of forest revenues previously estimated by independent organizations in Cambodia. However, the actual highest forest revenues collected in 1995 was only $24.5 million about 5-6 times lower than our estimate under BAUSU scenario indicating the existence of irregularities in tax collecting system in the Cambodian forest sector. From the study, royalty charged on wood product is a major source of forest revenues. Since wood product is strongly affected by logging damages, better logging practices should be introduced. Wood conversion factor also plays an important role in revenues generating. Thus, sound wood processing technology should be sought for to increase the efficiencies of wood processing.