In the gathering dusk of December 4th, Chhoeung Chheng, a Cambodian journalist with a dogged commitment to exposing illegal logging, was shot near Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary.
He succumbed to his injuries three days later, his body failing to withstand the assault from a homemade gun. It was a weapon often wielded by poachers but, this time, turned on a man whose only armament was a camera and the courage to use it.
Chheng, 63, had been no stranger to peril. For five years, he chronicled the relentless destruction of Cambodia’s forests for Kampuchea Aphiwat News, undeterred by the threats that came his way. On that fateful evening, alongside his colleague, Moeun Ny, Chheng was documenting the shadowy trade that has gnawed away 72% of Beng Per’s primary forest cover over two decades. Their presence provoked the ire of a tractor-riding logger, who gunned him down.
The tragedy unfolded in a region scarred by greed. Beng Per’s lush canopies have been cleared for rubber plantations and further decimated by encroachments, leaving behind a skeletal forest clinging to life. Chheng’s work sought to illuminate these wounds, not for acclaim, but for the faint hope that exposure might slow the devastation.
His death marked the first killing of a Cambodian journalist since 2014, yet it felt less an anomaly than a continuation of a grim pattern. Environmental reporters around the world continued to be silenced, their work seen as a threat by both state and private actors. For Chheng, the consequences proved fatal.
Ny, the survivor, vowed to persist. “The forest might be destroyed at a faster pace without the local journalists,” he said. But even as the perpetrators are brought to justice, the void left by Chheng’s death cannot be filled.
Cambodia’s forests lost a defender that evening. The world lost a voice, silenced for daring to seek the truth.
Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
