Forests and forestry
Forest protection
Soldiers detain REDD forest patrol members
Community forest patrollers in Oddar Meanchey’s Samrong district say they were forced to return saws and timber they seized from illegal loggers after soldiers detained and threatened them on Sunday. The 27-member patrol, funded by development NGO Pact as part of the REDD+ carbon credit program, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013040964964/National/soldiers-detain-redd-forest-patrol-members.html
Hun Sen’s Land Titles Receive Rare Praise From Germany
Since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced an ambitious new plan some 10 months ago to make nearly half a million families official land owners, hardly a week goes by that a rural community does not complain of local officials trying to scam the project. But when ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-land-titles-receive-rare-praise-from-germany-17312/
Village forest activists strike back at 3 firms
A community forest patrol group trying to fight the destruction of protected forest in Kratie province’s Snuol district have, for the second time in two weeks, seized equipment from those they accuse of illegal logging. About 100 people from Svay Chreah, Snuol, Sre Cha, Pi Thnou ...
Trees being cleared for Sesan dam
As many as 40 workers are cutting down trees, marking other trees they plan to fell in protected forest areas and piling up luxury timber in a flood-safety zone in Stung Treng’s Srekor commune, a local official said yesterday. Commune chief Seak Mekong said the workers ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013040264835/National/trees-being-cleared-for-sesan-dam.html
Pursat Police Official Charged Over Illegal Fishing
The Pursat Provincial court on Friday charged Krakor district’s judicial police bureau chief for taking bribes in order to allow illegal fishing in the Tonle Sap Lake, officials said yesterday. [Hong Bunthoeun] stands accused of accepting bribes to allow illicit fishing in parts of the Tonle ...
Kratie cut to shreds
‘I heard a f—ing crazy dog say that we can’t dock in Kampong Saom, but we definitely can do that,” a crackling voice declares boisterously. The speaker, captured in video obtained by the Post, is part of an illegal timber syndicate. The identity of the speaker ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032964752/National/kratie-cut-to-shreds.html
Forestry Administration Fights Logging with Wedding Gardens
As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense. “Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are ...
Kuch Naren, P.20
http://www.cambodiadaily.com
Grasslands present dilemma
A week after British researchers released a study warning that the nation’s grasslands would soon be lost if drastic action was not taken to protect them, some agricultural experts have called for moderation, noting that the intensive rice cultivation blamed for the grasslands’ destruction is ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664676/National/grasslands-present-dilemma.html
$10 mln to protect ecosystems in Southeast Asia
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund has committed to provide another $10 mln U.S. in grants to address the environmental crisis engulfing mainland Southeast Asia. The ground-breaking biodiversity fund was launched in 2008. During the first phase, $10 mln was invested in efforts to conserve the critical ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=ZmM3ZDQzYjBiMmV
Short on Water in the Tonle Sap
Residents of a village in the middle of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap “Great Lake” live surrounded by water, but don’t have enough access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing. The Tonle Sap, a combined lake and river system that swells in the rainy season to ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/water-03202013141227.html
Illegal checkpoints, logging tools netted
Activists in Kratie province’s Snuol district seized seven chainsaws over the weekend and collected evidence that four police checkpoints were used to solicit bribes from illegal loggers, representatives of the network said yesterday. After scouring thousands of hectares of protected forest from Friday through yesterday, the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031962013/National/illegal-checkpoints-logging-tools-netted.html
New study reveals catastrophic loss of Cambodia's tropical flooded grasslands
Around half of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a ...
http://phys.org/news/2013-03-reveals-catastrophic-loss-cambodia-tropical.html
Upstream Dams, Downstream Trouble
As examples, Laos broke ground on a new Mekong River dam that’s causing concern bordering on fury in Cambodia and Vietnam. India is enraged about a new Chinese dam going up on the Brahmaputra River. And Ethiopia’s new dam on the Nile is angering Sudan, ...
http://www.hydroworld.com/news/2013/03/12/upstream-dams-downstream-trouble.html
Chinese Firms Foresee Industrial Hub in Preah Vihear
Preah Vihear province – The residents of this sleepy district, on the edge of the Boeng Per Wildlife Sanctuary, grow rice, cassava and cashew nuts. But in a few short years, Chinese investors envisage that Rovieng will be rapidly transformed into an industrial town. ...
Sesan Dam Law Approved
Cambodia’s parliament on Friday approved a law providing financial guarantees for the developers of a planned hydropower dam on a Mekong River tributary, despite opposition from civil society groups seeking to delay the project. Villagers campaigning against the Lower Sesan 2 dam in northeastern Cambodia’s Stung ...
Last days of a valley damned
Yong Yim’s voice rises to a high-pitched quiver when she talks about a planned dam in the Areng Valley that would inundate land her family has inhabited for hundreds of years to form what amounts to a giant battery. Now they are staring at ...
May Titthara, David Boyle and Danson Cheong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013020861238/National/last-days-of-a-valley-damned.html
Land laws not properly implimented
Laws protecting ethnic minorities’ communal land rights are good, but their implementation has a long way to go, said participants in a forum of minorities from Mondulkiri and Kratie provinces yesterday. After July’s parliamentary elections, legislators should take the opportunity of a newly constituted government to ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013013061073/National/land-laws-not-properly-implimented.html
Chinese Sugar Firms Accused of Land Grabbing
More than 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province have accused a group of Chinese-owned sugar plantations of encroaching on their farms and community forests since mid-2012 and say they are still waiting for a resolution. Sen Som, a rice farmer in Chheb district, said Heng Rui ...
Group Wants Changes to Prey Long Forest Protected Plan
A local conservation group yesterday called for several changes to a draft sub-decree meant to turn Cambodia’s Prey Long Forest into a protected area, concerned it could end up harming, rather than conserving, the forest. ...
Khuon Narim and Saing Soenthrith, P.20
http://www.cambodiadaily.com
Dozens sentenced in forest-clearing ring
Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sentenced 28 people – including several government officials – to between two and five years in jail on charges of clearing state-protected flooded mangrove forest in Kampong Thom province in July of 2012. Presiding Judge Keo Mony said that Cheath Sivutha, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013011860868/National/dozens-sentenced-in-forest-clearing-ring.html
Forestry Officials Confirm Illegal Logging by Vietnamese Firm
During a joint investigation with police and military police last week, the Forestry Administration found evidence of large-scale illegal logging by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, officials said yesterday. ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods, P.18
http://cambodiadaily.com
Phnom Penh's Historic Quarter to go to Pedestrian
A new tourist promenade is to open in the heart of Phnom Penh’s old French quarter. Scheduled for a February opening, the tourist walk zone will provide an outdoor leisure area on street 13 that will be closed to cars and motorbikes on weekends from ...
Victory claimed in land dispute
More than a month after halting construction around a disputed land concession in Ratanakkiri province, a Vietnam-based company has reportedly gone a step further and agreed to return 30 hectares of razed forest, a village representative and commune chief maintained yesterday. ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/victory-claimed-land-dispute
Forestry Officials Investigate Vietnamese Firm
Amid mounting calls for government intervention to stop the destruction of indigenous land by a Vietnamese rubber company in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, the Forestry Administration has begun investigating claims that the firm is logging illegally and clearing land outside of its concession, officials said ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods, P.19
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/forestry-officials-investigate-vietnamese-firm-7450/