Deforestation drivers

Kampong Speu provincial governor Vei Samnang has issued an order prohibiting clearing and settling on more than 281ha of state forest land in two locations after some residents illegally occupied and farm the land. ...

Mondulkiri provincial governor Svay Sam Eang urged officials and local authorities to intensify efforts to prevent forest crimes and illegal logging as these activities have increased. ...

Svay Leu district forestry administration office in Siem Reap province has given a month’s notice to the owners of homemade tractors impounded last week for transporting illegal timber. Authorities warned that if no action was taken the administration would take the case to court. ...

Forestry crimes including logging, poaching and encroachment on state forest land for private ownership increased considerably last year despite stricter law enforcement, according to an annual report by the Ministry of Environment. ...

The National Committee for the Prevention and Crackdown of Natural Resource Crimes still claims there are no large-scale forest crimes in the Kingdom, despite forest activists saying that logging is taking place because people are unemployed. ...

Illegal loggers have cleared 30-hectares of community forest land, close to the site of thousands of natural stone pillars in Mondulkiri province, felling hundreds of trees and leaving the area barren. ...

Police in Pursat province arrested a high-ranking military officer on Monday, accusing him of encroaching and clearing around 40 hectares of the state’s protected forest areas in Veal Veng district.​ ...

The provinces of Kampong Chhnang and Koh Kong yesterday guaranteed legal action against any individual found guilty of encroaching on or engaging in illicit land trade within state-protected forests. ...

Preah Sihanouk provincial governor Kuoch Chamroeun on Sunday warned that criminals destroying mangrove forests to occupy state land will face strict legal repercussions. The warning came as he attended the replanting of mangroves on 2ha that had been destroyed in Tuol Totoeng commune’s Chumpu Khmao ...

Ratanakkiri provincial and O’Yadav district police forces seized 30 logs of mixed timber from a plantation in Pak Nhay commune’s Lom village on Sunday. Police suspect traders hid the logs at the plantation while they waited to transport them to be sold in Vietnam. ...

The University of Copenhagen’s open letter used data from the University of Maryland’s Global Forest Change dataset and other data points to show that 7,510 hectares of forestland were lost at the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary in 2019, the worst loss since 2016 when the ...

The Environment Ministry yesterday refuted a claim by Wildlife Alliance that more than 200 hectares of mangrove forest had been cleared inside protected areas in Koh Kong province’s Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary. ...

The Wildlife Alliance yesterday discovered over 200 hectares of mangrove forests within Koh Kong province’s Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary were illegally cleared. ...

Major-general Chan Sam Ath was found guilty of violating the Forestry Law by the Stung Treng Provincial Court on Wednesday, but he will not be imprisoned because of poor health due to abdominal surgery.   ...

Forest activists claimed they had observed more cases of deforestation in the Prey Lang area than before the Covid-19 outbreak. They alleged that three companies had sent workers to log and transport timber with no crackdown by the relevant authorities. ...

Cambodia’s forest cover was over 73 per cent in 1975 but it has shrunk to only about 47 per cent last year. In its Human Development Report Cambodia 2019, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) said deforestation was mainly caused by rising wood demand for ...

As the impacts of climate change become more apparent worldwide, members of the public are connecting more weather events to the phenomenon. In March and April, for example, extreme heat baked mainland Southeast Asia. On April 20, Vietnam set an all-time observed record high temperature, 43 ...

Cambodia’s forests are being felled at a shocking rate, as poachers and corrupt officials profit from the black market trade in rare wood species, which is being exported to Vietnam — and beyond. Loggers are illegally felling rare and valuable trees to sell in China and Europe, ...

A team of researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) has found that the loss of dense forest in Cambodia is associated with higher risk of diarrhea, acute respiratory infection, and fever in children. ...

A petrol tanker truck was found with more than 2,000 pieces of luxury rosewood stashed inside its tank when it was intercepted by authorities in Phnom Penh last week, National Military Police spokesman Eng Hy said yesterday. ...

The Cambodia Royal Gendarmerie and Kratie provincial military police yesterday concluded a crackdown on a known timber smuggling route in Sambour district, confiscating nearly 100 pieces of wood equivalent to about 40 cubic metres. ...

Massive deforestation is playing a crucial role in the droughts that have devastated Cambodia. But despite an official ban on timber exports, forests continue to be cut down at a record rate.The Cambodian government awarded between 30 and 40 logging concessions to private companies during ...

A conservation NGO official yesterday said he planned to ask microfinance lenders to better scrutinise their loans after a spate of cases over the last month showed that such loans had been used by illegal loggers to purchase chainsaws and tractors for transporting timber. ...

About 1,000 hectares of protected forest in Mondulkiri province have been logged under the noses of environment officials, rights group Adhoc and community leaders said yesterday. ...