Some of the world’s largest fashion brands are making ambitious sustainability promises while using illegal timber from Cambodian national parks. This timber, cheaper than other fuel sources, is burned in factories to boil water for washing, dyeing, and steaming garments, leading to the consumption of an estimated 200,000 metric tonnes of Cambodian forest wood annually.

Villagers, with limited job options, turn to illegal logging in these protected areas, risking injury from machinery and facing arrest by aggressive, sometimes corrupt law enforcement.

Although the UK and EU, major importers of Cambodian garments, have banned imports linked to deforestation, these bans don’t cover apparel. Moreover, the lack of legal requirements for brands to disclose their supplier lists allows them to avoid accountability while continuing to profit from their environmental claims.

These photos were taken as part of a three-part investigative series in Mongabay.

A man rides on the top of a van transporting wood on the road that connects the Cardamom Mountains to Kampong Speu. The timber will be sold to garment factories that incinerate the wood to generate steam.

The timber depot at Goldfame Star Enterprises that covers 2.25 hectares. Security guards told reports that trucks come every night. The Hong-Kong based Goldfame Group which has operated in Cambodia since 1996 and now boasts nine factories, as well as ownership of 1 million square meters of land across Cambodia.

Garment factory workers ride in the back of a truck on their way to work. As of 2022, Cambodia’s garment sector employed 650,000 workers of which an estimated 80% were women, most of whom migrated domestically from the provinces in search of work.

Saroeun* cuts dead logs in the Central Cardamoms National Park.

A fire burns over a forest within the 9,059 hectare Chinese-owned Great Field Economic Land Concession. Illegal logging both inside and outside the Great Field and the adjoining Yellow Field Economic Land Concesions has been well documented. The deforestation associated with the concessions has left local loggers with no option but to go deeper into the forests to supply the garment industry. It's unsure whether the forest fire intentional or an accident.

Saroeun carries timber out of the Central Cardamoms National Park to load up onto his koy-yun before selling it to a network of traders who will supply firewood to garment factories across Cambodia.

An aerial view over the Central Cardamoms National Park, one of several Protected Areas that constitute the Cardamom Mountains, an evergreen forest situated on the Thai-Cambodia border. In November 2021, construction began on the nearby 150-megawatt Stung Tatai Leu hydropower dam.

Logs cut from the Central Cardamoms National Park are transported by koy-yun to the nearby Kteh village. Logs from Kteh village are then sold to middlemen who transport the timber to one of hundreds of garment factories that incinerate the wood to generate steam.

A middleman loads logs into the back of his truck. The logs will likely end up being sold to a network of middlemen into Chbar Mon that sell the wood onto garment factories in Kampong Speu and Phnom Penh.

A cluster of garment factories in Kampong Speu Province, a hotspot for factories that cluster along National Road 4 that connects Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville.

A middleman unloads logs from the Cardamoms that will be sold to garment factories in Kampong Speu and Phnom Penh.

Wood is loaded into two large trucks at a timber depot before being delivered to factories in the Phnom Penh area.

A customer looks through the selection of clothes at H&M’s flagship store in the Aeon 1 shopping mall, Phnom Penh. Four factories supplying to the Swedish conglomerate fashion brand were reported to be burning forest wood in a 2021 study by researchers at Royal Holloway, University of London.

A woman sits in a van loaded with logs inside Hui Yuan Garment, a TAFTAC member garment factory, that sits on National Road 4. In October 2022, reporters tracked timber from a depot in Chbar Mon to the factory.

Wood is transported at night by truck on National Road 4 that connects Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville. The road is a key road connecting the timber depots in Chbar Mon to factories in Phnom Penh and Kampong Speu.