You could not see the logging camp from the narrow track on the edge of the once vast Prey Lang forest in central Cambodia. But human rights lawyer and forest defender Leng Ouch had recced the location on motorbike, identified its owners, studied aerial pictures from a drone and within minutes of arriving was crawling through the dense undergrowth and tree stumps towards it.



Twenty minutes later Leng was inside the secret timber yard which stretched over several acres and was stacked with hundreds of logs and planks waiting to be taken to China or Vietnam. Some were precious species worth tens of thousands of dollars each. Others were unidentifiable. All, he said, came from protected forest.

He recorded what he could but within minutes of getting into the sawmill, the man who has spent 20 years exposing corruption and greed at the heart of the Cambodian forest industry was running for his life.

Spotted by armed guards, Leng spent the next hour hiding in a ditch, attacked by insects and not daring to move. Had he been found he would have been detained, arrested, and almost certainly beaten up or worse.

On Monday Leng receives a Goldman award for the many, often far more dangerous, undercover investigations he has done for years on an almost monthly basis to try to halt the destruction of Cambodia’s rainforest. In that time he has exposed some of Cambodia’s biggest timber magnates, identified rampant land grabbing by Chinese and western corporations, publicised the people behind the international trade in precious woods, and taken on corrupt elements within the national and local government.

Dubbed the “green pimpernel”, after the novel about an elusive British aristocrat who adopted disguises to save people during the reign of terror at the start of the French revolution, Leng has had his life threatened by the military police, loggers, and thugs and he suspects his family are under surveillance.

In the last few months he has been living in safe houses. “I feel anxious that the government or logging companies could threaten me, arrest me, or even kill me,” he says.

Cambodia is now one of the most dangerous countries in the world for human rights and environmental defenders.

Leng’s friend and colleague, Chut Wutty, was murdered in 2012 by unknown assailants; national park rangers have been gunned down for confronting loggers; activists are regularly imprisoned and last week, one of Leng’s friends, Phon Sopheak, who received a UN prize at the Paris climate change summit, was macheted as she slept in a hammock. It is likely her attacker mistook her feet for her head in the hammock and she survived.

The Goldman prize could put Leng’s life in even more danger, he says, because it makes him more identifiable. “The battle for the environment is everywhere becoming increasingly fierce. I feel in great danger but I am not scared. They know my name but mostly they do not recognise me. Often I go in disguise. Sometimes I have long hair, sometimes short, sometimes I wear dirty clothes. They have threatened me many times but now they have been to my house. So now I must relocate my family.”

Working with the unfunded Cambodia Human Rights Task Force (CHRTF), Leng is barely ever paid for his work. Donors and other NGOs, he says, fear that association with him could compromise their relationship with government and corporations.

Instead, Leng works with local communities advising them how to investigate forest crimes and defend their own trees. One is the Prey Lang community network, a collection of villages who use Facebook, apps and other social media to send teams of motorbike riders out in large groups to document crimes and patrol the Prey Lang forest.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘Even though I know that my life and even my family is at risk, I still try to save the forest.’ Photograph: 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize

When they find illegal loggers they confiscate their equipment. In the last year, says Leng, they uncovered more than 2,000 cases of forestry crime, confiscated thousands of planks of wood, chainsaws and even bulldozers being used to clear forest.

“We are calling on the National Assembly, the Ministry of Environment and the office of prime minister Hun Sen to close all sawmills in all Cambodia’s protected forests. These sawmills are the main driver of forest degradation and are used to launder illegal timber,” he said on his way to San Francisco to collect the prize.

He will also be a founding adviser for a new international NGO, called N1M [Not One More], a global protection network which, when launched this week, will work with organisations like Front Line Defenders, the Environmental Investigation Agency and the Center for International Environmental Law to defend and protect threatened activists.

According to Global Witness, over 1,000 environmental and land protesters have been murdered worldwide since 2002. Earlier this year the Honduran activist Berta Cáceres, was murdered sparking a storm of international protest .

“Front line environmental defenders like Leng are critical in fighting climate change, protecting our natural resources and upholding human rights and cultural identity. Yet they face violent reprisals, threats and criminalisation,” said N1M co-founder Fran Lambrick, director of the documentary I am Chut Wutty who has worked with Leng.



“He faces serious risks, he knows what could happen, but he continues. It’s not that he’s fearless, to be fearless would be stupid in this situation. Chut Wutty was shot on a very similar mission to what Leng undertakes on a monthly basis. But feeling fear and being ruled by it are different things, and Leng would never be ruled by anything. Leng is unafraid to speak his mind, even to denounce a powerful tycoon, when other human rights groups take a conciliatory line.”



Leng says he takes the risks because he is educated, qualified as a lawyer and passionate.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest In the last year Leng and his team have uncovered more than 2,000 cases of forestry crime and confiscated thousands of planks of wood, chainsaws and even bulldozers. Photograph: 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize

“I try to struggle to protect the remaining forests in Cambodia because I think that not many people can do this job. And also the government — the Forest Administration, Ministry of Environment and other authorities - do not effectively implement the law. The government grants licences to sawmills and furniture businesses in Cambodia, that is the main cause of deforestation.

“Even though I know that my life and even my family is at risk; I could be criminally charged and arrested or get killed, I still try to save the forest, even though I don’t have support from other donors.”