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 CATCHING THE TIMBER SMUGGLERS ON CAMERA |
BY JENNIFER GREENSTEIN To save the trees of Cambodia, three activists have turned themselves into undercover sleuths as daring as James Bond and as tenacious as Sherlock Holmes. They wrest incriminating information from illegal loggers by pretending to be customers, befriend collaborators of the communist Khmer Rouge over drinks and--using their secret weapon, a video camera concealed in a shoulder bag--pose as tourists to record the movements of trucks piled with timber. "It's conceivable that if recognized, we'd be marched into a truck and never seen again," says Simon Taylor, 34, who works with Patrick Alley, 39, and Charmaine Gooch, 32. Together they make up Global Witness, a London-based group whose patrons include the playwright Harold Pinter and the Body Shop cosmetics chain. In 1995 the Cambodian government prohibited the export of newly cut timber, but the ban has apparently been widely ignored. Concerned about the scale of Cambodia's illegal logging, the International Monetary Fund last year suspended loan payments to the country. In an effort to spur stronger action, Global Witness has shown international agencies the results of its investigations, including video footage of trucks smuggling logs through Khmer Rouge-controlled territory into Thailand. Cambodian officials have pledged to halt the illicit traffic, but they've put little muscle behind their words. Global Witness plans to keep their feet to the fire. --Reported by Mairi Brahim/London
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