Forests and forestry

Three members of the family of murdered journalist Hang Seri Oudom will appear in Ratanakkiri provincial court on Wednesday, according to their lawyer. Oudom, who exposed illegal logging in the area for the Virakchun Khmer newspaper, disappeared last month when he left his house at night ...

A week after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he would be cancelling an unknown number of economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest, activists called for details on the annulled concessions, saying such revocations would be meaningless unless they could be policed. On September ...

Environmental protection group Global Witness has added its voice to the growing criticism of the Koh Kong Provincial Court’s decision to end its investigation int the murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. The decision to drop the case “can only be described by as the latest ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday said it had dropped its investigation into the killing of environmental activist Chut Wutty, allegedly by a now-deceased military police officer in April. The court made the surprise announcement during the tril of Rann Boroth, who took the stand yesterday for the ...

Five months after the fatal shooting of forestry activist Chut Wutty, Koh Kong Provincial Court dropped his case yesterday morning, saying they would only be looking into the shooting of the man who allegedly killed Wutty – a trial that wound up lasting less than ...

Cambodia is among the tropical countries whose forests are being cleared using increasingly advanced methods to feed a growing global trade in illegal timber worth at least $30 billion a year, according to a new report. The report, Green carbon, black trade, a joint effort by ...

Unable to effectively police the Cardamoms alone, the Cambodian government partners itself with several international NGOs. The forests directly north of Highway 48 arc patrolled with the help of Wildlife Alliance. Beginning in 2002 with two ranger stations, Wildlife Alliance now operates six outposts in the ...

Three ethnic Bunong communities in Mondolkiri province may soon receive long-awaited collective property titles, which would bring to six the total number of communal land titles granted to the country’s indigenous people since the Land Law was created in 2011. And while the possible issuing of the three ...

Just two weeks after a journalist’s bludgeoned corpse was discovered in Ratanakkiri province, a human rights group yesterday identified two more recent cases of violence or intimidation against reporters in the northeastern province. The report from Adhoc said the pressure from local journalists has occurred alongside an increase ...

Two studies have found that development on Bokor Mountain in Kampot province is threatening some of the area’s plant and animal species. The Sokimex Group has been granted development rights for the entire mountain and in May, the first of three hotels to be built ...

An American-made army truck that was allegedly used to smuggle illegal timber through SIem Reap province, and which crashed and killed a family of three on Friday, was not a U.S. government donation, the embassy confirmed yesterday. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said an inspection ...

Cambodia’s economic land concession (ELC) policies are hindering development far more than helping it and beginning to erode the country’s hard-won stability, Cambodia’s special rapporteur warned yesterday. “As I have noted in relation to other sectors in Cambodia, the existence of the legal framework on paper ...

Military officials are attempting to squelch a potential lawsuit from relatives of three people killed Friday when Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers smuggling wood through Siem Reap province drove a military truck, donated by the U.S. government, into the family’s motorbike, police officials said. ...

A family of three, including an 18-year old girl, died when the driver of a military truck carrying illegally cut wood slammed into their motorbike in Siem Reap province, officials said yesterday. The family died at the scene while the occupants of the military truck, seen ...

The director-general of Unesco on Thursday spoke out against the murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom in Ratanakkiri province, and called for the authorities to provide justice for the victim and his family. “I am deeply concerned by the killing of Hang Serei Odom,” Irina Bokova ...

Four Vietnamese nationals were arrested off the coast of Preah Sihanouk province Tuesday for allegedly smuggling illegally cut wood from the neighboring province of Koh Kong, officials said yesterday. Sak Sovann, crime unit chief for the Interior Ministry’s maritime border police department, said the four men ...

The Prey Lang community patrol network faced threats from illegal loggers after reporting the loggers’ names to authorities, along with the discovery of more than 120 cubic metres of illegally felled timber and seven chainsaws, a patrol representative said yesterday. Chheang Vuthy, a community representative from Kampong ...

The Prey Long People’s Network yesterday said it found 121 cubic meters of cut wood and seven chainsaws belonging to illegal loggers after a coordinated patrol across four provinces that was prematurely aborted due to heavy rains. In a statement, the community group said it discovered ...

The man accused of shooting the man who shot environmental activist Chut Wutty last April had been summoned to the Koh Kong Provincial Court to stand trial next month on charges of unintentional homicide, a court official said yesterday. According to deputy prosecutor Srey Mak Ny, ...

A local journalist and a forestry officer who were arrested by military police forces in Kratie province last week for beating a man and firing a gun into the air were released on Monday as part of a compromise between the victim and his attackers. Srey ...

An ongoing project to build hotels, luxury villas and a casino on Kampot province’s Bokor Mountain is a threat to the area’s unique animal and plant species, according to two new studies. Local conglomerate Sokimex Group has been granted property development rights on the entire mountain, ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court will soon summon a number of people for questioning in its investigation into the brutal murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom earlier this month, a court official said yesterday. Former military police Captain An Bunheng and his wife, Sim Vy, were ...

Economic land concessions strewn over the remote Western Siem Pang forest, in Stung Treng province, are threatening the survival of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, a report reveals. The forest, flanking the Kingdom’s border with Laos,  is home to five critically endangered bird species, yet ...

A journalist murdered in Ratanakkiri last week took a call from his accused killer on the night of his disappearance, his family has claimed in a complaint to the rights group Adhoc. Ken Sovann, 63, the mother of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom, whose body was found in his car in O’Chum district ...