Forests and forestry

Top officials on Monday said the government would be auctioning off some of the 70,000 cubic meters of wood authorities have seized in recent months, backtracking on a recent pledge Hun Sen made to stop the sales. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday told Cambodians to stop hunting and poisoning wild birds, whose populations are already under strain from drought and forest fires.   ...

Twenty-nine Cambodian men were arrested while logging rosewood in the mountains of Thailand’s Prachinburi province on Wednesday, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said in a statement on Friday.  ...

Nine Cambodians were arrested and sent back to Cambodia from Thailand yesterday after Thai soldiers allegedly caught them logging illegally in the Dangrek Mountains. ...

Soldiers allegedly protecting an illegal logging operation in Oddar Meanchey threatened to shoot a group of forest patrollers that stumbled across their logging site on Sunday, Rattanak Rokha community forest patrol leader Chea Chuong said yesterday, though an RCAF commander denied the account. ...

A landmark decision by Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen could see almost a million hectares of forest reclassified as protected areas in a country with one of the highest deforestation rates in the world.​ But the order, circulated on Friday, to transfer control of the sites ...

The core of one of Cambodia’s most important and abused forests —Prey Lang—was officially de­clared a protected area this week af­ter years of campaigning by local ac­tivists and foreign conservationists.    ...

After setting up the National Anti-Deforestation Committee (NADC) in an attempt to show that the government was trying to stop illegal logging, Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called on all citizens to join the battle, saying people even had the right to make citizen arrests ...

The smuggling of illegally cut timber from northeastern Cambodia’s Ratanakiri  province to Vietnam has dramatically increased since around April 17, with smugglers traveling the roads between the two countries day and night, sources in the region say. ...

The Angkor Elephant Company has pledged to reduce the working hours of its animals following the death last Friday of Sambo, one of 14 elephants it uses to carry tourists around the Angkor Wat temple complex, although critics say anything short of their release from ...

The Apsara Authority announced yesterday that it is considering the selective removal of some trees inside the 401-square-kilometer Angkor Park, saying that only those that pose potential risk to the park’s visitors and temples would be cut down. ...

The Ministry of Environment conducted a workshop yesterday to discuss the government’s plan to designate five forest areas, totaling about one million hectares of land, as protected. ...

Four farmers were arrested and charged yesterday over allegations of killing an endangered banteng, considered to be one of the most beautiful species of wild ox, in a protected forest in Mondulkiri, according to officials. ...

Twelve loggers were arrested on Saturday while harvesting timber illegally inside the Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary in Pich Chreada’s Pou Chrey commune, according to a local media report. ...

The Ministry of Environment has given two NGOs the go-ahead to implement their proposed management plans for five protected community forest areas in Battambang and Pursat provinces, projected to cover 1,064 families and 2,761 hectares.   ...

Police in Mondolkiri province yesterday arrested a former military police officer with two outstanding warrants after chasing down his SUV and finding a cache of illegally sourced luxury wood inside.   ...

The illegal timber trade to Vietnam, a key nexus in a shadow industry worth billions of dollars, has been all but eliminated, an official said yesterday in summarising a new report from the government’s anti-logging commission, a claim met with disbelief by more than one ...

Police in Koh Kong province reported yesterday that 49 Cambodians were caught trying to cross the Thai border during a forest patrol on Monday in Smach Meanchey district.   ...

A patrol in Seima Protected Forest in Mondulkiri last weekend found a young great hornbill near an illegal logging site. Hornbill sightings have become rarer as the bird’s population drops. ...

Making a dramatic arrival by helicopter at the Sofitel Hotel in Phnom Penh after a flyover of Prey Lang forest, Environment Minister Say Sam Al and US Ambassador to Cambodia William Heidt discussed a plan to make the Kingdom’s largest forest a protected area. ...

The latest crackdown on illegal logging in Cambodia is “just a game” and big timber traders are winning, says Ouch Leng, a former government official who has spent two decades helping poor villagers fight poaching of precious tropical forests. Leng’s tenacious and perilous crusade to stop ...

About 130 hectares of protected wetlands in three villages in Kampong Chhnang province’s Boribor district were consumed in forest fires last week, according to a police report issued by the Interior Ministry. ...

A leading Indian conservationist and tiger expert is warning that a multimillion-dollar scheme to reintroduce the big cat to Cambodia will be a “tragic failure” that could cost lives, and that its advocates will come to rue the attempt.    ...

Houses will be built for school teachers from illegally-felled timber seized by authorities, the Ministry of Education has announced, but before work can start on the new structures officials from the ministry have been asked to gather information on which schools need the houses the ...