February in Pictures

Here are the pictures to go with the last post.

		Feb at the Forest VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

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What's Happening

It has been awhile and things are moving so slowly here I feel there is not too much to report on.  Ben has been working hard.  The most difficult issue at the moment has been the constant influx of loggers from all over.  Chainsaws operate in the night time (and sometimes in the day) and so if he has some of the village Community Forest (CF) committee willing to do a night time patrol, they head out to look for these guys.  The wood is being sold to big trucks that export to the a country on the east of Cambodia.  There is lots in the Phnom Penh Post  if you do a search on "logging, Preah Vihear" about this issue and it is somewhat "annoying" to put it mildly.  Yesterday, they were out hiking and they came across a "ko eu-uan" with wood.  No one around.  They confiscated (hid it in the bushes really) a chain block that they had and in the process, Ben lost his camera.  So today they return, looking for the camera.  They passed 5 ox-carts and 2 drivers so about 3 others off somewhere else.  They said that they had bought resin trees (Diptocarp) from another village and were I guess going to cut them and take them (back to Siem Reap province).  However, they later came across the other men with axes and other implements.  The latest method is to use the old fashioned way with axes, then squaring up the logs with this implement called a "duong" and hauling them with oxcarts.  Slow, but silent.  Less chance of being caught.

The camera was found by the way!

Below are some pictures from December of what the problem is.  This is Pterocarpus macrocarpus Kurz wood (otherwise knows as Thnong in Khmer or a type of rosewood).  These three "ko eu-uans" were surprised coming around the corner.

Enough about logging.  Well actually, a problem with all the logging has been that the people that Ben would otherwise be hiring to saw up his wood have been busy.  He has asked them to make boards out of this timber which people cut earlier in the year for their land claiming activities.  They must cut the trees in order to claim the land after which they sell the land or just hang onto it.  The particular land is not really any good for agriculture but cut they must.  And so as we drive into the village, and to the north of Ta Bos, we see swaths of felled timber, soon to be burned - because, that is what they do.  This timber is good hardwood.  Not beautiful like the rosewood that is being exported but it is a good, durable hardwood.  And since it is just laying wasted, waiting for the fires, Ben has asked the chainsaw people to cut it for him.  But they are so busy.  In the last couple of weeks, he managed to have some finished and transported - almost enough to floor the building that we are supposed to be moving into.  Almost, but not quite.

So, in waiting for the wood, Ben finished off the water system.  This is quite impressive.  Over one kilometer of pipe has been laid - some buried, and some not, due to the very, very hard and rocky ground.  It starts just below the spring on the side of the mountain.  I'm not the best to explain this but at the head (as I understand!), they put in a ring (or two) with sand around and the pipe coming from the centre of the ring. This means that the sand filters the water before entering the pipe.  This is in a sort of waterhole made by the spring.  At the end of the pipe, water is flowing non stop.  He put three lengths of pipe up in the air to see how high it would push, and it was still bursting out the top.  Great pressure and maybe still a lot of head left. This is exciting as the garden has also been started and now there is running non stop water for our irrigation needs.. and household needs... and our swimming pool (another story there).

Yes, the garden.  We hired some women from the village to help clear a patch of land which is all overgrown vine from a blowdown tree.  It is a lovely sunny patch with really good (relatively good I should say).  These ladies worked really hard slowly whittling away the vines and brush for burning.  We have planted a few fruit trees and hopefully soon a vege patch so there will be more food to eat.

Our volunteer, Alex from Brisbane, via Avondale College, has left!  He toughed it out and survived on Ben's diet of beans and rice, somehow.  He took a lot of time to memorise about 1000+ words in khmer, an amazing feat and hopefully he can remember then when he comes back next.  Thank you Alex!

And, about a week after Alex left, another enthusiastic helper arrived from Sydney.  Jamie is currently out in the forest with Ben also living on beans and rice.  He can show Ben up in pull ups, so Ben is trying to out-hike him I think!

Loggers and Logos

It has been quiet on here lately.  Ben has had a frustrating time with the weather.  We went to Phnom Penh in September for a supposed few days however it was raining and raining, making return to the forest difficult to say the least.  In the last posting he had roofed the building, and then left it for about 10 days.  They hadn’t been able to build a lock-up-able shed yet and was having fun trying to remotely manage guarding responsibilities.  After that first stretch away, he did return and quickly (half a day!) was able to put together a little shed that now has a padlock on it to store tools etc.  Alleviating the need for a 24/7 guard.  Deep breath of relief. 

Patrolling the site has been fun and frustrating also.  He has been struggling with the ever present loggers.  This time, there has been demand from purchasers for rosewood – these middlemen have permission from unidentified powers to transport the wood and also to protect the logger and so there was quite a bit of activity going on for a while – and from the local villagers which is sad.  There seems to be a little more will from the authorities to curb this activity as of this week and they just caught a couple of ox-carts of wood and sent it to the Wat.

Last month, they had a little bonfire per compliments of the Forestry Administration who came to supervise.  These particular items belonged to loggers from Siem Reap or Kompong Thom.

One of the nights when Ben was sleeping out there, they heard a hard at work.  He and his workers quickly got up and went out in the direction of the sound.  They managed to creep up on the logger and caught his attention with a picture (below)

He managed to escape with his chainsaw leaving his backpack of other equipment which they confiscated.  After which, Ben and his team looked around them and found they were in the dark without a compass and without the GPS.  No sky to speak of due to pouring rain.  Ben had his thongs on.  One of his workers was carrying Ben’s boots intending to wear them himself (Ben didn’t want to get them muddy so he himself didn’t wear them).  They tromped back to their worksite – finally finding a road they knew and following it in the wrong direction for a bit before turning around the right way.  Ben has learned to take his GPS on night time raids.

Here was another find – a tree that they are so desperate to down that they are digging up the roots.  It is a Tnong (a type of rosewood) that is full of holes but they want it so bad they are digging the roots.  Ben told them not to cut it down and it is still there – for the present.

And finally here is a picture of the jumping caterpillar who I was referring to in a previous post.  It hatched or transformed I should say into a moth.  There has been all sorts of gossip going around about these guys.  I head a story in Rovieng that they are living in Umbrella trees and that if they fall on you, you die.  And so the Umbrella trees should not be played under, if not cut down.  Amazing the stories that go around. 

On the business front, we found someone to design a logo for us.  Here are the options that she came up with for the first draft.  We have chosen the name beTreed – meaning get treed – i.e. as in like a racoon stuck up a tree with dogs chasing it.  But a slightly more positive connotation – get up in the trees.  Stay in a treehouse.  Fly through the trees on ziplines etc.  That is the idea.  We like the first design.  Stay tuned in for the website although it may be a little while!  But I hope not too long.