Forest protection

Rangers paid by an internationally funded conservation organisation have been directly profiting for years from the very trade they are supposed to be preventing in southwest Cambodia, documents obtained by the Post allege. Former Conservation International (CI) staff members say when they spoke up about endemic ...

The government has already granted roughly 300,000 hectares in economic land concessions (ELC) so far this year, according to data released by a local rights group yesterday. The figure, which amounts to 40 percent of the total land concessions granted in all of 2011, has ...

Residents of an ethnic minority village in Mondolkiri’s Seima Protected Forest on Monday became the first community in the province to receive a communal land title, land management officials said yesterday. About 500 indigenous Bunong families from Andoung Kraloeng village in O’Reang district’s Sen Monorom commune ...

The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...

A casino complex on top of Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain will open in less than two weeks – but environmental groups are strangely quiet about the effects the development, the size of a small city, could have on Cambodia’s natural heritage. The complex, in the Preah ...

The Forestry Administration’s proposal to create a conservation zone for Prey Long, one of Cambodia’s largest remaining primary forests, has been scaled down by more than 20 percent and now covers about 480,000 hectares, an official said. During consultation workshops in Phnom Penh last month, the ...

A man fled his home in Kratie province’s Snuol district after three men threatened to kill him for confiscating their chainsaws during a patrol against illegal logging, he told the Post yesterday. Village representative Chea Horn said he was scared to return home after the men ...

Faced with the rapid loss of vast tracts of forest across Cambodia, local communities have begun to fight back, and a growing number of villagers are now organizing their own aggressive forest patrols in order to save the forests on which they have relied for ...

Villagers from all five communes of Kratie province’s Snuol district began patrolling the Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday in a bid to protect the area from illegal loggers, in the second multiday crackdown undertaken by residents this year. ...

A combined task force of Thai soldiers and national park officials yesterday arrested 38 Cambodian villagers who encroached on the Panom Dong Rak Wildlife Sanctuary in Thailand’s Si Sa Ket province, which borders Oddar Meanchey province. Thai National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department chief Damrong ...

Less than a week after banning commercial fishing in Tonle Sap Lake, Prime Minister Hun Sen issued a sub-decree on Monday extending the ban to four provinces along the Mekong River. According to the sub-decree, signed March 5 and released publicly yesterday, commercial fishing will be ...

The government yesterday moved to protect endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong River, announcing plans for a 180-kilometre-long conservation area that would stretch from the Lao border through Stung Treng province to Kratie town. Touch Seang Tana, chairman of the Commission for Conservation and Development of ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday extended indefinitely a ban on commercial fishing in Tonle Sap lake, citing ongoing illegal fishing to the detriment of local villagers. The premier had first imposed the ban on 35 fishing lots in the lake in August, as a result of ...

The Sam Rainsy Party has asked Prime Minister Hun Sen to verify the details of a proposed dam that could inundate about 10,000 hectares of protected forest, citing concerns that it would lead to rampant illegal logging and devastate a traditional habitat of Siamese crocodiles. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that he would permanentlycance all 35 fishing lots on the Tonle Sap lake – which had already been suspended in recent months – and turn them into a conservation zone to protect the lake’s pressurized wild fisheries, on which ...

Authorities in Preah Vihear province on Monday confiscated one ton of illegally logged rosewood from a Land Cruiser that had crashed after careening out of control on a sharp bend, environment officials said yesterday. The vehicle was found in the early hours of Monday, overturned on ...

Less than two weeks after the Tonle Sap Authority reportedly installed a ban on large-scale fish exports, Prime Minister Hun Sen declined to endorse the order and re-opened exports, officials said yesterday. Chan Youttha, secretary-general of the Tonle Sap Authority, said it had prepared a report ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered an end to all private land deals inside the country’s protected areas and warned local businessmen and officials against making such illegal deals. “All official paperwork in connection with natural protected areas is invalid,” he said while speaking at the ...

Illegal logging of staggering proportions abetted by military personnel is decimating stocks of luxury rosewood in the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, while the conversation group tasked with protecting the area and its government counterparts deny the trade is even happening. In a period of several hours ...

While crediting his efforts to quash illegal fishing with a surge in this year’s fish stocks, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that he would extend the closure of 35 large Tonle Sap lake fishing lots until 2014. Speaking at a road paving project inauguration in ...

An official with the Fisheries Administration predicted yesterday that the annual fish catch would increase this year by about 20 percent over last year, saying that recent efforts to reduce illegal fishing practices around the Tonle Sap lake had contributed to the jump ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday ordered Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun to explain irregularities that have taken place in the bidding process for licenses to operate fishing lots around the Tonle Sap lake. The order was carried out after Mr Hun Sen received a report from ...

The Royal Cambodian Government has given another slice of the Boeung Per Wildlife Sanctuary to the agro-industry. A report in the Royal book released on October 12 states that 1,410 hectares had been granted to two unidentified private businesses for development, particularly the planting of rubber ...

The latest in a series of land concessions granted in protected forests has cut nearly 10,000 hectares from Cambodia’s largest wildlife sanctuary – home to the Kingdom’s critically endangered national bird, the Giant Ibis. A September 7 sub-decree, released on Monday evening, reclassified 9,237 hectares of ...