Rovieng, Cambodia – At the edge of a forest on the northern plains of Cambodia, an indigenous community is building its own security system.

It comprises a small outpost made of timber confiscated from illegal loggers at the main access point looters use as they look to rob the forest of its riches.

For the community’s self-appointed forest patrol, it is a key line of defence when most indigenous people have been reduced to bystanders as their ancestral forests are felled.

“We can’t depend on the law, it’s too slow,” says Ruos Lim, the 67-year-old patrol leader.

A group of mostly tribal elders, they see themselves as vigilantes, tasked with defending the forests that provide them with food and income.

“Day and night, we will lead our children and grandchildren to protect our livelihoods from all intruders,” says Lim, who believes that if the forests are destroyed, next goes the community, its traditions, its language, and potentially an entire way of life.

Banking on the forests

The forest has wild fruit, timber and honey. 

“This place is a special kind of bank,” says Lim. “We invest by nurturing the forest, and there is always plenty to take out.”

He has lived his entire life in the tiny village of Bang Khanphal, which backs the Chom Penh forest, part of the 242,500-hectare Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary.

Chom Penh has provided the village with building materials, food and higher-value products like honey and resin for trading.

For Lim’s grandparents – members of the Koi indigenous minority, with populations through the north of Cambodia and across the border into Thailand – the forest was the community’s only source of wealth. 

“The trees, the streams, the mountains are our gifts to our children,” Lim said late one night, swinging in an old hammock and puffing on wild tobacco rolled in a leaf. “The forest is their inheritance and we must protect it from the thieves.”

But as deforestation has increased, indigenous people are forced to venture further into Beng Per to find products of value, putting Chom Penh, at the heart of the sanctuary, increasingly under threat. 

Satellite images show grids of rubber plantations eating away at the lush green Beng Per Sanctuary. 

In 2013 alone, Beng Per lost 12.4 percent of its forest cover, according to satellite data by Licadho, a Cambodian rights group. It has lost at least 33 percent since 2000.

‘We are the only active patrollers here’

For more than two decades indigenous communities have been fighting against a wave of investment from agribusinesses, foreign and local, that bought permission from the central government to clear, according to Licadho, more than half of Cambodia’s arable land, an area roughly the size of El Salvador.

This land is then leased to concessionaires, mostly well-connected tycoons, who use it to launder billions of dollars’ worth of luxury timber stolen from the surrounding forests. Once the wood makes it onto a concession, it’s as good as legal, its source untraceable. 

National parks and wildlife sanctuaries, where logging is prohibited, became targets of those hired to cut down trees for concession owners.

And as the oldest and most valuable trees were picked off, reclassified as “degraded forest”, they were turned into plantations. 

In Southeast Asia’s most corrupt country, according to Transparency International, poorly paid rangers have little incentive to confront logging cartels with the cash and connections to bend the law.

“In remote areas, groups like the rangers tend to work for the highest bidder,” says Marcus Hardtke, a German environmentalist who has been chronicling the illegal timber trade in Cambodia since 1996.

“In these situations, the local communities are the final and only line of defence for forest and wildlife.”

“In reality, we are the only active patrollers here,” Lim says. “The rangers’ only concern is who pays for their fuel.”

Journalists and environmental watchdogs have published evidence tying unlawful deforestation to the highest levels of authority in Cambodia, including the prime minister’s office.

In 2011, Try Pheap, an associate of Prime Minister Hun Sen with a 10,000-hectare rubber plantation in Beng Per, donated $100,000 to build a ranger station for the sanctuary.

Global Witness, a watchdog that was kicked out of Cambodia after releasing a damning expose of the timber industry, labelled Pheap a timber gangster “destroying Cambodia’s last forests and robbing indigenous communities of their livelihoods”.

In a 2015 report, Global Witness said: “The very officials in Cambodia who should be stopping [illegal logging] are conspiring to ensure that contraband wood enjoys safe passage and is exported as seemingly legitimate lumber.”

Despite evidence, Phnom Penh has rejected such reports. 

Every so often, a new enforcement drive is launched, such as in 2016, when the prime minister ordered military police in helicopters to fire rockets on illegal loggers “without mercy”.

No rockets were fired, and, in recent months, with deforestation again on to the national agenda, the prime minister recycled his rockets and helicopters measure using almost identical language.

Neth Pheaktra, a spokesman for the Environment Ministry says that the government supports community patrols and would act on any reports of illegal logging.

He says that clear-cutting protected forests was necessary to “develop the country and create jobs” and that an environmental effect assessment was conducted before each concession was handed over.

“We found that [there would be] no impact on the sanctuary,” he says.

The challenges in Beng Per started in the sanctuary’s southeast, and as the destruction churns towards Chom Penh, Lim and his band of vigilantes are bracing for further looting.

And in the world of illegal logging, no one is safe. 

About 200km east of Chom Penh, a military police officer, a government ranger and a conservation worker were murdered earlier this year after confiscating chainsaws from loggers inside a protected area. 

The suspects, Cambodian soldiers, are in prison awaiting trial.

Defending their riches

Lim and his men have turned their regular forest jaunts into rolling patrols. 

Their mission is to stop Chom Penh from being pillaged, and they use a combination of education, scolding and threats.

On a clear day in August, two patrol teams left Bang Khanphal village before dawn, on foot and in opposite directions to look for intruders.

The main party departed hours later, on a ko yun – or mechanical cow – a long, flat trailer attached to a diesel engine on wheels. 

They carried fuel, hammocks and four days’ worth of rations: 30kg of rice, 10 litres of rice wine, energy drinks and salt. Everything else would come from the forest.

Aside from locals coming out of their earth-floor homes to stop the party and offer a winter melon or some spices for the trip, the planning and departure was carried out with military precision, and later that day, when the patrol hit the southern reaches of Chom Penh, Lim’s background bubbled forth. 

“This is the war zone,” he said. 

At the age of 21, Lim joined the Khmer Rouge, rising from lowly village spy to the head of a local security unit whose area encompassed parts of Chom Penh. 

At 67, he claims that he never killed anybody in battle or lost control of his forest.

Today, his front line is marked by chainsaw-scarred trees and piles of freshly cut timber – the remnants of battles won and lost.

“If we find thieves here today,” Lim says, a patrol team of six in tow, “it will make me very happy.” 

The pillagers the patrol eventually encountered, however, were mainly opportunists. Ninety percent of the “thieves” the patrol finds are Koi people whose community forests have been razed, driving them closer to Chom Penh in search of a quick buck. 

“Some days they find a single piece of wood, some days they find nothing,” Lim explained later, as he rested in his hammock. “They don’t’ know how to find a job. They’ve lost their forests, their farms – it’s all been cleared. That’s why they come looking.”

Having to scavenge for a livelihood is exactly the fate he is trying to keep from his people.

One afternoon, after tracking the buzz of chainsaws to a makeshift logger’s camp just outside Chom Penh, Lim called out, “The rangers are here, the rangers are here. Come and face us.” 

Three young men caked in sweat and sawdust emerged and faced a group of grandfathers carrying pick axes and knives. They sat in the dirt as Lim stood over them and delivered an impassioned scolding.

“Do you understand how important the forest is to your people,” he said. “Have you forgotten who you are?”

The loggers said they’d heard rumours the forest would soon be cleared and replanted with rubber and decided that they may as well get a piece of the loot.

“It’s a trick to make you cut down your own forest,” Lim said. “You are listening to outsiders and they have made you crazy about money.”

In about a dozen encounters with loggers on the patrol’s four-day trip, only one group tried to escape. The patrollers tracked them down later in their village and handed them over to the police.

The rest accepted their punishment, a vocal beatdown from a local elder they knew, feared and respected. One absorbed his lecture and then joined the patrol team.

Reporting for this story was supported by the Earth Journalism Network’s 2018 Asia-Pacific Story Grants.

Bleacher Report CFB @BR_CFB

Pinstripe uniforms: or

(via @NDonNBC)
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Cody Grace @CodyG_91

Notre Dame in these uniforms today.. https://t.co/mA5cUaO2cx

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You would think of all teams, Notre Dame would be able to say, no, we’re not wearing these dopey unis no matter what you’ve paid us.

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For all the flack Notre Dame got over its pinstripe uniforms, Syracuse’s get-up looks like something out of a half-finished coloring book.

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These Notre Dame uniforms are embarrassing. Don’t use someone else’s brand. You’re NOTRE DAME.

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Hide the children, Notre Dame’s new alternate uniforms are Yankees-themed, with pinstripes and all: https://t.co/IOnPQMNZ4e https://t.co/4Mf1JPg3UY

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Never been a fan of Syracuse’s all-white look. But, at least they aren’t in Notre Dame’s uniforms; those are hideous. Looks like the Irish tried too hard.

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The people who like Notre Dame’s uniforms are the same people who don’t actually watch college football.

California

Since the president announced his visit, there had been speculation as to whether he would be joined by the governor-elect, who campaigned as an alternative to Trumpism.

YUBA COUNTY, Calif. — Two weeks after decisively winning an election framed as a referendum on President Donald Trump, California Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom met his foil for the first time on a smoke-stifled tarmac as the state burned.

Newsom and Gov. Jerry Brown were on hand when Air Force One touched down at Beale Air Force Base north of Sacramento on Saturday, Trump’s second visit to California since assuming the presidency. The three shook hands and exchanged words, the silhouettes of trees at the end of the tarmac barely visible through a grey haze.

Story Continued Below

From the moment Trump announced his visit, there was speculation as to whether he would be joined by Newsom, who has framed his imminent governorship as a counterweight to the president.

But as California reels from the deadliest wildfire in state history, Trump’s visit affords the incoming governor an ability to rise above the animosity and work with the federal government when the need arises – even as he faces pressure from liberals at home to do the opposite.

“A smart woman once told me that you campaign partisan and you govern bipartisan,” Dana Williamson, an adviser to Brown, told POLITICO. “It’s imperative that the victims of these horrible fires and the thousands of first-responders have the full attention of our federal, state and local leaders regardless of politics.”

A spokesman for Brown said he joined at Trump’s invitation.

Newsom and Trump have long been locked in a dance of mutual enmity, each regularly invoking the other to galvanize their respective bases: Newsom positions himself as the champion of California’s alternative to Trumpism, while the president caricatures Newsom on the campaign trail as an extreme liberal who wants to open borders and distribute free health care.

Still, the social media reaction underscored the political peril, with detractors questioning Newsom’s decision and equating it to an act of betrayal.

Numerous users said Newsom and Brown should use the opportunity to demand that Trump apologize for his tweets faulting California for the severity of the fires or to challenge the accuracy of his claims. While some praised the show of unity, others said Newsom should have slipped the appearance to send a statement. More than a few mentioned that Newsom’s ex-wife Kimberly Guilfoyle is now dating Trump’s son Donald Jr. and wondered if the relationship would come up.

When Trump a week ago responded to the natural disaster ravaging California by deriding the state’s management and threatening to halt federal help, Newsom joined Democrats heaping on criticism. “Lives have been lost. Entire towns have been burned to the ground. Cars abandoned on the side of the road. People are being forced to flee their homes. This is not a time for partisanship,” he said.

The sight of Brown alongside Trump was also jarring, given how the current governor has sparred with Trump – particularly over the White House’s unraveling of policies intended to blunt the effects of climate change, a signature issue for Brown. Trump told Fox News’ Chris Wallace in an interview set to air Sunday that while an altered climate contributed “a little bit” to voracious wildfires, forest management was the larger culprit, and he reiterated on Saturday that he believes better managing forests is the paramount issue.

Joining Trump on Air Force One were two of his top allies from California’s diminishing Republican congressional delegation: newly elected minority leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who represents the area ravaged by flames.

They departed from Beale Air Force Base with Brown and Newsom by helicopter to the fire zone about 60 miles north.

While Trump is reviled by much of the California electorate, the area at the heart of the fire’s devastation supported the president in 2016. In the town of Paradise almost completely destroyed by the Camp Fire, Trump won 53 percent of votes in 2016, compared to 37 percent for Hillary Clinton.

LaMalfa, the Republican who represents the area, told McClatchy that he had invited Trump and echoed the president’s calls to better manage the trees that fires feed on.

Tijuana, Mexico – It was the day of the 2017 general elections in Honduras when unknown men approached Obedi Miranda and her husband, Allan Escobar, two opposition Libre party activists.

“They told us to leave, or else,” Miranda said this week, sitting on a couch in a corner of a migrant and refugee shelter after just arriving in Tijuana.

She and Escobar, along with their two-year-old son, are more than 4,000km from their home in Trinidad, in the Copan department of Honduras.

The family fled the town the day they had received the death threats, first to another part of Honduras, then to southern Mexico, and finally to Tijuana after joining an exodus of migrants and refugees headed to the US border in hopes of applying for asylum.

Miranda, Escobar and their son are three of the more than 2,000 migrants and refugees who arrived in the Mexican border town this week as part of what is now being called the Central American exodus. Thousands more are heading north in subsequent waves to join them, and other groups forming in El Salvador and Honduras plan to follow behind.

The story of each migrant and refugee in the collective exodus is different, but overall, the reasons for leaving are generally the same. Many are fleeing poverty, unemployment, gang violence or political persecution. Often, it is for multiple reasons. 

Miranda and Escobar fled for safety, from the threat of politically motivated violence in a country where killings of activists are all too common.

2009 Honduran coup

Miranda got involved in politics after the 2009 coup d’etat, when the Honduran military ousted elected President Manuel Zelaya, forcibly removing him from his home and flying him out of the country. 

The coup sparked months of protests and marches around the country, and tens of thousands of Hondurans who had never before participated in social movements joined in. Miranda and Escobar were among them.

Other civilian politicians from the Liberal Party, not the military, took over the presidency. It was not long before the United States and Canada recognised the new government, prompting a normalisation of international relations, even as massive protests and repression continued in the streets.

Within a year the country held the country held an election, which many considered illegitimate, and the National Party took over, leading to widespread repression and heightened violence.

The Libre party grew out of opposition to the coup.

In the years the followed, Miranda and Escobar said they participated in the Libre party in the municipality, eventually becoming more well known in the region. In the November 2017 election, Escobar became Libre’s alternate to Copan department congressional candidate Juan Carlos Ruiz.

The campaign was an uphill battle in a department dominated by the ruling party. Due to the threat, the couple immediately left their hometown without sticking around for the election results.

After the general election, things only got worse.

Government crackdown

The November 2017 presidential election between President Juan Orlando Hernandez of the National Party and Salvador Nasralla of an opposition alliance was already marred in controversy before campaigning really got started. 

A Supreme Court ruling permitted Hernandez to run for a second term despite a constitutional ban on presidential reelection.

During the election, Nasralla had a five-point lead when the preliminary results were first announced. The elections data transmission system then went down for hours, and when it came back online, Hernandez was in the lead, prompting months of street protests and highway blockades.

The government instituted a crackdown on the protesters with tear gas and live ammunition. Hundreds were arrested and rights groups documented at least 30 deaths, which they reported occurred mostly at the hands of the military police.

Calls for total recounts and new elections lost momentum after the US government recognised Hernandez as the winner in late December. But the protests and government crackdown continued, prompting Miranda and Escobar, along with their son, to leave Honduras altogether and head to Mexico.

Roughly half of the dozens of Hondurans with whom Al Jazeera has spoken over the past month along their journeys through Guatemala and Mexico, including those simply fleeing poverty not violence, have cited the re-election of Hernandez and ensuing crisis as a motivating factor behind their decisions to leave Honduras this year.

Long wait begins

For those, including Miranda and Escobar, who have made it to Tijuana, the next phase of their journey has just started. 

There was confusion and fear at the downtown shelter where Miranda and Escobar stayed on Thursday. The shelter was full, rumours of detentions were circulating, and people did not know whom they could trust or where they would sleep.

“There is a collective hysteria,” Escobar said. A woman nearby nodded in agreement.

A group of anti-migrant protesters also confronted newly-arrived migrants and refugees nearby on Wednesday, adopting the same language used by President Donald Trump, who has falsely called the collective exodus an “invasion”.

On Friday, local Tijuana government officials announced that they were expecting some 10,000 migrants and refugees to arrive and that the situation would last for months. The federal government has not yet provided financial assistance to continue to shelter the Central Americans at a local sports complex, local officials said. 

Meanwhile, the migrants and refugees must now begin to navigate the long and seemingly complicated process of applying for asylum at the the US border.

Miranda, Escobar and their son are prepared to wait in Tijuana for as it long as it takes. On Friday morning, the family signed up on the waiting list. It will be three weeks until the family can claim asylum in the US, they were told.