Environment and natural resources

Cambodia’s foremost logging baron exported more than 100,000 cubic metres of timber from Sihanoukville Port last year, likely including a species protected by an international treaty to which the Kingdom is a signatory, an analysis by Global Witness of leaked export records suggests. The data, obtained ...

A network of about 400 activists completed a five-day patrol of the unprotected 650,000-hectare Prey Long forest in the country’s north Sunday, seizing and burning illegally logged wood and confiscating chainsaws from those they discovered felling trees. ...

A 200kg Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead at the border between Stung Treng province and Laos, bringing the dolphin death toll for 2015 to five, authorities said yesterday. Villagers in Koh La Ngor, in Preah Rom Kel commune, discovered the carcass on April 1, according to ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court on Friday questioned an Areng Valley villager opposed to a government-backed hydropower dam over allegations of illegal logging but has yet to lay charges. ...

Environmental experts yesterday called for the government to find an alternative to the Srea Ampos-Kbal Damrei Road, which would link Mondulkiri with Vietnam but also bisect a protected forest and pose a “high risk” to threatened species. ...

Villagers in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday detained and handed over to authorities a Vietnamese man who told police that Sos Malen, a local environmental official, had let him into Cambodia to log illegally. Immigration police let the man go, however, claiming to have insufficient evidence ...

About 400 community activists on Thursday set out on a five-day patrol of Cambodia’s sprawling— and unprotected—Prey Long forest to root out illegal loggers and the illicit clearing of the area’s commercial farms, making for the largest patrol by the Prey Long Community Network in ...

A female passenger was killed Wednesday after an accident that occurred as she attempted to board the Queen Elizabeth cruise ship while it was moored off the coast of Sihanoukville, according to a statement from the cruise line. ...

The filling in of a canal in the capital’s Chbar Ambpov district has prompted local villagers to push back against looming displacement, district officials and community representatives have told the Post. ...

Authorities are tallying the cost of major storms that battered three provinces in recent days, leaving one woman dead and more than 100 homes and other buildings damaged. ...

Experts involved in the protection of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, have lauded the successes of an ongoing conservation scheme, and offered cause for optimism that the animal can overcome its current status as critically endangered. ...

The ninth annual conference of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation’s Asia-Pacific chapter commenced in Phnom Penh yesterday, assembling a host of academics, conservation workers and policymakers to address local and global challenges facing biodiversity in tropical Asia. ...

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. ...