Research & Article

This paper explores the circumstances of teak logging from 1909 to 1924 around the Ing River, in the Mekong watershed. Teak logging in the Ing forests was not a simple phenomenon occurring in a geopolitical vacuum. First, teak logging practices were made possible by the French control of French Indochina, including part of the right bank of the Mekong River, which Siam had ceded to France in 1904. Second, the actual logging operations in this region depended upon the geographical location of the Mekong River. That is, teak logs from the Ing forests could only be transported via the river, which crosses the borders of Siam and French Indochina.