Protected areas

Hundreds of villagers in Preav Vihear’s Kulen district cut down a palm tree on Monday and used it to block provincial officials attempting to confiscate tonnes of luxury timber from their village, their representative said yesterday. Ri Sothun, a spokesman for more than 400 families in ...

A group of endangered Asian elephants found dead in Mondulkiri province on Sunday were likely slaughtered, investigators from conservation group WWF-Cambodia have found. The organisation said in a statement yesterday an investigation into the deaths in protected Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary suggested the elephants were “slaughtered ...

The discovery of the remains of three endangered Asian elephants in Mondulkiri’s Phnom Penh Prich Wildlife Sanctuary has prompted conservation group World Wildlife Fund to launch an investigation into the animals’ deaths. Samrang Dy Vichet, director of the Wildlife Sanctuary, told the Post yesterday that villagers spotted the ...

Logging tycoon Try Pheap has come under fire from two separate reports alleging that he is using his vast network of concessions and licences to decimate protected forests across Cambodia. One of the reports, an exhaustive four-month investigation by a local NGO, also looked at the ...

Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...

At around 6 p.m. in Phnom Penh each evening, about 5,000 large brown bats, having spent the day dangling upside down from a tree at Wat Phnom, spread their huge wings and fly out to begin their nightly search for fruit. And as useful and ...

About 50 ethnic Jarai families in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district have sold their farmland and part of the forests their culture depends on to the sister of former Finance Minister Keat Chhon, rights group Adhoc said Monday. Last year, the ethnic minority Jarai in the district ...

For the ethnic Bunong people in this northeastern province, animals are an integral part of the local economy. Pigs, chickens and water buffaloes offer a variety of sustenance and labour. But it’s the elephants that bring foreigners – and foreigners bring cash. “When I get tours, the ...

The Prey Lang Community Network of anti-logging activists announced yesterday that late last month it had accepted the Alexander Soros Foundation’s $25,000 Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Environmental and Human Rights Activism on behalf of slain environmental crusader Chut Wutty. ...

KOH KONG – The dullness of a rainy day accentuates the lush shades of green rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains in Koh Kong province. Float down the Tatai River and you see bobbing turquoise, red and yellow canoes tied up along the banks—in their vivid ...

Anti-logging activists wrote to the United Nations yesterday to call for the monitoring of a lawsuit in which they accuse hundreds of officials in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary of illegal deforestation. The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) listed 241 officials it ...

In Cambodia, there is talk of change. Not just from Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has promised reforms after his party suffered a significant blow in recent elections, but from environmental activists and campaigners, who say there has never before been such an opportunity ...

Two monks living a remote pagoda in Kampong Speu province’s Oral district said yesterday that a shot had been fired at their living quarters last Tuesday in what they suspected was a threat motivated by their conservation efforts and participation in an opposition rally. Venerables Sam ...

Cambodia’s only U.N.-backed carbon trading scheme is still nowhere near making any money for communities and logging in the area continues to threaten the very forests supposed to generate tens of millions of dollars over the next 30 years, community representatives and officials in charge ...

The government’s latest five-year strategy calls for a complete halt to economic land concessions (ELCs) and an inquiry into those still in the pipeline. But the plan has drawn scepticism from conservationists and rights groups, who pointed out that loopholes have been liberally applied after the ...

SAN FRANCISCO — The Oddar Meanchey REDD+ (Reduced Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation) project in Cambodia is the first in the world to complete verification of emission reductions under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) with a triple gold Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) accreditation for emission ...

In the months leading up to Cambodia’s national election on July 28, authorities in the Angkor Archaeological Park allowed dozens of land owners to build new houses and develop plots of land inside highly protected areas of the world heritage site. Villagers interviewed last week said ...

The Siem Reap Provincial Court charged three men Wednesday with illegally logging luxury rosewood inside the Angkor Archaeological Park, a Unesco world heritage site, officials said. Provincial prosecutor Heng Pheng said the suspects had been identified as Sun Phearak, 20, Phay Sophea, 18, and Phin Ron, ...

A conservation group yesterday accused a military commander in Kampong Speu of smuggling two tonnes of illegally cut rosewood to Vietnam on Monday night. Chea Hean, director of the Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organisation, said the commander had cut the timber in the protected Oral ...

KAMPONG SPEU PROVINCE— Three years ago, Pao had a farm and a charcoal stove near a stream in a community called Omlaing in western Cambodia. The farm gave her rice, charcoal sales gave her extra income and the nearby forest provided edible and medicinal plants. Pao ...

Four unidentified men were arrested yesterday for allegedly killing an endangered and pregnant gaur – a species of wild bovine – in a protected wildlife reserve in Mondulkiri province, provincial officials said. After villagers discovered the carcass on Wednesday, provincial authorities along with conservationists in charge ...

Civil society groups yesterday hit back at the government after a Ministry of Interior statement released on Wednesday warned NGOs that they would be breaking ministry protocols on political neutrality by “directly or indirectly” supporting an unnamed political party or its protests. The Cambodia National Rescue ...

Diminishing populations of hoofed animals in Southeast Asia have hit Cambodia hard, with numbers of one of the Kingdom’s indigenous species dropping by 90 per cent. The current banteng census shows an 80 per cent drop in the world’s banteng population and a 90 per ...

Rights group Adhoc will take a complaint filed against a commune police officer accused of colluding with illegal loggers in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district to the provincial court today. The complaint, which villagers in Lbaing II commune filed with Adhoc on Friday, alleges that commune police officer ...