Environment and natural resources

Representatives of an ethnic Tompoun community in Ratanakkiri province filed two separate complaints with local authorities last week accusing a group of five environment department officials of extortion after the officials allegedly caught the minority villagers trapping illegally in a wildlife sanctuary and asked for ...

The three men arrested for the murder of 49-year-old journalist Taing Try in Kratie province on Sunday morning confessed to murdering the reporter after he threatened to tell authorities about their illegal logging activities, a police official said. ...

Ahead of a national consultation meeting about Laos’s Don Sahong hydropower dam later this week, communities that will be affected by the project have made their opinion clear: suspend the dam. ...

Police in Cambodia say they have arrested three people after a journalist investigating illegal logging was shot dead. Taing Try was killed on Sunday at a logging site in Kratie province, where he had gone with several reporters. Two years ago a prominent environmentalist was also shot ...

Thai soldiers shot and seriously injured at least four illegal loggers who crossed into Thailand from Oddar Meanchey province’s Trapaing Prasat district last week, a rights worker said Sunday. A group of about 10 loggers were searching for luxury rosewood across the border in Thailand’s Sisaket ...

Very quietly, with no official public announcement, the intergovernmental assessment process for Laos’s contentious Don Sahong dam is almost over before anyone knew it began. ...

A 49-year-old journalist reportedly investigating illegal logging in Kratie province was shot dead early Sunday morning. Within hours, police arrested three men—a commune police chief, a military police officer and a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldier—for the murder, officials said. Taing Try, who contributed to ...

Authorities in Kratie province on Saturday night discovered nearly 90 pieces of luxury-grade wood stockpiled just outside the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) headquarters in Chhlong district, where they believe the timber was being staged for transport to Tbong Khmum province to the south, officials ...

Pailin provincial authorities are searching for a suspect who allegedly commissioned the excavation of a gold mine on land the protection of which is funded by the foundation of American actress Angelina Jolie. Provincial environmental police are holding three men at a spot where they were ...

Cambodia on Tuesday defended its plan to build the 108-megawatt Chhay Areng River hydropower plant in a jungle in southwestern Koh Kong province, saying the project would greatly contribute to developing the energy sector. “An initial study found that the project has a capacity of 108 ...

The construction of Koh Kong’s Cheay Areng hydrowpower dam will cost USD 400 million and be completed by 2020, said Energy Secretary of State Ith Prang Tuesday. Speaking at a press conference, he said the study of the dam and its impact on environment has been ...

Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem has issued a letter to the National Assembly commission on the environment, offering assurances that the planned Stung Cheay Areng Hydropower Dam will meet high environmental and social standards. Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party member Te Chanmony on September ...

Villagers whose homes will be destroyed if the controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam is built are to deliver today a letter to provincial authorities announcing that they refuse to be resettled. Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, said the villagers, who hail from ...

A torrential downpour that lasted over three hours yesterday morning has left many in the capital struggling with flooded houses, businesses and travel conditions, sparking outcry that authorities have not done enough to manage the rain’s effects. Flooding took place in virtually every district in ...

Two illegal loggers were arrested by a community patrol in Prey Lang forest on Wednesday, the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) said yesterday. ...

Tycoon Try Pheap has collected an estimated 1,500 cubic metres of timber from Forestry Administration offices since the government in July issued his companies permission to confiscate “waste wood” from their offices and from the Ministry of Environment, according to preliminary government figures obtained by ...

The last of 16 shacks that once clung to the edge of a mammoth development project in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district were demolished by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) on Monday. Seven families in Doeum Kor 2 village—where marshlands are quickly being pumped full ...

More than 100 officials from some 20 economies in Asia and the Pacific are meeting with donor institution representatives in Cambodia’s Siem Reap province in a bid to strengthen public financial management systems for climate change adaptation projects, said a news statement on Monday. ...

Minority villagers from Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district climbed up a mountain to a community forest yesterday morning to challenge a company they claim is illegally felling their trees. ...

Cambodians staged a protest Thursday to share the concerns of more than a quarter of a million people who are calling on Laos to suspend construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project on the Mekong River. At the protest Chhith Sam Ath, country director of the ...

Sheltering under a blue tarpaulin amid dense woodland in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, Nhean* sits and waits for night to fall after a long day scouring the protected forest for luxury timber. He says he works for a broker who is a supplier to one of Cambodia’s ...

About 50 villagers living along the Mekong River in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district protested outside their local pagoda Sunday to demand that authorities take action against a company illegally dredging sand from the riverbed. ...

Secret storage depots for illegal timber hidden in the forest in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district were discovered by ethnic minority villagers on Friday, prompting a rights worker to suggest local officials were involved in the illicit trade. ...

The Chinese government has provided forestry equipment in equivalent to 4.1 million yuan (667, 200 U.S. dollars) to Cambodia for protecting and developing forest sector, officials said. ...