A report released by the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) exposes the pivotal role played by the Vietnamese military in a multi-million dollar operation which is smuggling threatened timber over the border from the shrinking forests of neighbouring Laos. Laos has some of the Mekong region’s last intact tropical forests, but the EIA report Crossroads: The Illicit Timber Trade Between Laos and Vietnam reveals its export ban on raw timber is routinely flouted on a massive scale to feed the ravenous timber processing industries of Vietnam, China and Thailand.

Illegal loggers - equipped with automatic weapons - invaded the mountains and chop down the ancient forests — and once again the government failed to stop them, then the this town said enough. Now every stranger entering Cheran is stopped at barricades made of logs, guarded by locals who cover their faces in masks. In the surrounding forest, a homegrown militia toting rifles creeps through the underbrush, signaling the way forward with bird calls, on daily patrols to protect their timber.