THE fine for truck drivers caught by police carrying illegal timber in Vientiane province has doubled, an official from the province said on Friday.
“If they don’t pay the fine, they will be sent to jail,” he said. Once the fine has been paid, the wood will be returned to the loggers, who will then be able to sell it legally.
The fines will vary depending on the type of wood, with the highest at around 640,000 kip (about US$68) per cubic metre.
In the last few months, Vientiane province authorities have apprehended many boats moored on the Mekong River loaded with illegal logs for transport to the capital.
Police officers from the province caught many of the boats on the river between the capital and river ports in Vientiane province; they ordered the boats back to their points of origin and fined the owners.
“Those caught with illegal timber were fined 170 million kip (about US$17,600),” an official said. But an official from the Forestry Department of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said the fine for illegal logging in some provinces was not harsh enough.
“After they are fined, they can still generate income from selling the timber to sawmills and wood-processing factories,” the official, who preferred to remain unnamed, said. “Much of the forest is being illegally logged. Illegal loggers should not only be fined but sent to prison.”
According to a forestry department survey, forest cover in Laos has fallen from 47 to 41.5 percent between 1992 and 2000.
If a new survey is conducted, it will be no surprise to find that forest cover has declined further. The department has a strategy plan to increase coverage to 70 percent by 2020.
Staff at Department of Forestry cooperate with the traders of timber hired villagers to cut them and after that the Forestry staff and police arrested those timbers then fines them and make timber become legal timbers.
