Forests in the Furnace
Gerald Flynn & Andy Ball
UK
Exhibition: 19 Jan - 2 Feb 2024
Venue: Chocolate Garden (Siem Reap)
An investigation into how Cambodia’s garment sector are fueling their boilers with wood logged illegally from protected areas. Tracing the network all the way from the impoverished villagers risking their lives to find increasingly scarce trees, to the traders and middlemen contending with slim margins, up to the factories with massive lots for timber supplies.
The garment industry association denies that any of its members uses forest wood, but the informal and opaque nature of the supply chain means it’s virtually impossible to guarantee this.
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow.
Read the full article and the crucial, three-part investigative series here.
Venue Partner
Artist Biography
Gerald Flynn is a British journalist based in Phnom Penh. As a staff writer for Mongabay, a US-based non-profit news outlet, Gerald covers environmental issues across Cambodia, with a focus on exposing how public resources are exploited for private profit. He was a fellow with the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network from 2022 to 2023 and serves as president of the Overseas Press Club of Cambodia. He is also a proud cat dad.
Andy Ball is a Cambodia-based documentary filmmaker and photographer interested in stories that revolve around the cross-section between society and the environment. Alongside working on documentaries for the BBC, CBS and Insider, his photos have been published in The New York Times, South China Morning Post, dpa, Mongabay, and others.