Environment and natural resources

Villagers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc against a logging company they say has claimed more than 9,000 hectares of community forest as its own and threatened residents against using the land. ...

Starting today, residents of Banteay Meanchey, Pursat and Kampong Thom provinces can enroll in a disaster-response calling service through their phones in anticipation of the impending rainy season. ...

The Mondolkiri Provincial Court on Friday charged six Vietnamese nationals with illegally logging in the province’s O’Reang district, where they were caught felling first-grade Sokrom trees after allegedly crossing into Cambodia with the help of a local military officer, officials said Sunday. ...

The Stung Treng Provincial Court on Wednesday released seven men who were arrested for illegally logging in the province’s Sesan district, an official said. ...

Forestry officials and police on Monday arrested seven men for logging illegally in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district, officials said Tuesday. ...

The development of two dams on the Lower Mekong River in Laos may have potentially devastating impact on the food security and livelihoods of 60 million people in the area, an international environmental group said. ...

As officials and development agencies marked International Water Day yesterday, thousands of families in Kampong Cham province went without a drop – some reportedly for the sixth day in a row. The local authorities and rights workers made desperate pleas for aid as reports emerged that ...

Twenty-eight hard-shell turtles and eight snakes – weighing more than 50 kilograms – were seized from a minivan in Kampong Thom’s Kampong Svay district on Wednesday. ...

After almost five years of alleged illegal logging in Preah Vihear province’s Preah Rokar community forest by a local businessman, more than 100 villagers yesterday petitioned the provincial authorities to shut down his handicrafts company. The villagers say that the woodworking operation, owned by businessman Sar ...

The 21st century welcomed its first baby gibbon at Cambodia’s Angkor Archaeological Park, in a celebrated step towards the conservation of an endangered species. ...

Ethnic Lao and the local authorities in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district have accused the Srekor commune police chief of being a timber “gangster” and selling protected wood to tycoon Kith Meng, who has a stake in the nearby Lower Sesan II hydropower project. ...

About 150 ethnic Kuoy in Preah Vihear province on Tuesday prevented police and a court prosecutor from taking back a pair of bulldozers the villagers seized last year from a Chinese-owned plantation they accuse of encroaching on their farms. ...

The Ministry of Environment is close to finalising a draft environmental impact analysis (EIA) law for development projects, but NGOs and civil society groups raised concerns that the draft law, as it stands, prevents indigenous people who live on the land from opposing such projects. Speaking ...

As the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphin population steadily declines, conservation groups have voiced concern that the critically endangered species may be swimming toward extinction if drastic measures are not soon taken to protect them. The numbers tell a depressing tale: From 2011 to 2014, 23 dolphins were ...

Forest and community activists in a northwestern province in Cambodia have expressed concerns about illegal loggers who have started producing charcoal for export to Thailand,destroying protected areas of community forests in the process. ...

Between 40 and 80 tonnes of charcoal, made from trees logged inside protected areas of community forests in Battambang’s Samlot district, have been illegally exported to Thailand over the last year, an NGO officer said yesterday. ...

The European Union yesterday pledged an additional €6 million to the Cambodia Climate Change Alliance Programme, as the 10-year plan, first implemented in 2010, entered its second phase of development. ...

The government says it seized less rosewood from illegal loggers in Banteay Meanchey province in 2014 than the year before thanks to stricter enforcement, following a meeting Wednesday to review its anti-logging activities in the area. ...

The new director-general of the international environmental group WWF, Marco Lambertini, met Tuesday with Environment Minister Say Sam Al to raise concerns over development projects that could have harmful environmental impacts, and one in particular that could derail plans to reintroduce tigers to Cambodia. ...

Three environment officials in Mondulkiri province are being sued by ethnic minority villagers for allegedly using a permit to build two ranger stations as a pretence to illegally log more than 4,000 cubic metres of luxury wood. ...

Environment officials in Ratanakkiri have over the past 10 days confiscated more than 500 pieces of valuable Sokrom wood found stockpiled throughout the province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary by illegal loggers, officials said Sunday. ...

New articles may be added to a draft law on disaster management, including punishments for officials who break the law. The current draft includes prison sentences and small fines for people who, for example, enter restricted areas during a disaster. ...

Cambodia had spent approximately 30 million U.S. dollars on disaster control in 2014, Nhim Vanda, the first vice-president of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said Thursday. ...

Cambodia is particularly at risk from man-made climate change due to its dependence on agriculture and its geography, Minister of Environment Say Sam Al said yesterday. The minister, speaking at a workshop marking 20 years of meetings on the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said ...