Law enforcement officers discovered wood products in the garden of a forest protection leader after a dozen century-old trees had been illegally cut down from a forest in Lam Ha District, located in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong.

Lam Ha’s forest protection department found out about the forest destruction during a patrol on November 17, the department said on Tuesday.

Accordingly, 11 cedar trees, hundreds of years old and 50 meters long, were cut down and sawed into logs and plywood at the primary forest in Lam Ha’s Da Don Commune.

When the rangers arrived at the forest, the logs had already been transported out of the place, with only the plywood and the branches and leaves left scattering here and there.

The rangers calculated that seven of the 11 chopped trees could produce over 14 cubic meters of wooden products.

Lam Ha’s forest protection department zoned where the suspects of the case could be and organized an inspection afterward.

On November 20, the department discovered 1.55 cubic meters of cedar wood products of the same kind as the logged trees in the coffee garden of Nguyen Van Tuyen, a 54-year-old man in R’Hang Tru Village of Lam Ha’s Phuc Tho Commune.

Tuyen is also the leader of a team of villagers charged with protecting the primary forest in Da Don Commune.

He told the rangers that he purchased the cedar wood products from B.M.T., a 38-year-old female neighbor.

Police in Lam Ha District summoned Tuyen to their headquarters for further clarification of the case.

As per regulations, the primary forest in Da Don Commune is protected from exploitation.

Anyone who illicitly logs a volume of woods of more than ten cubic meters from that forest will be subject to criminal prosecution.

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