Environment and natural resources

South Korea will soon give a four year loan package worth $200 million for dam and road projects, according to Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday. The loan will be utilized to repair three national road lines as well as rural roads in nine ...

Residents of three villages in Kompong Cham province’s Krala commune are growing increasingly frustrated with problems caused by a local garbage dump, saying it is a health hazard and that it emits an unpleasant odor. Khat Seang, chief of Tuol Porpel village, said the frustration may ...

More than 120 families in Phnom Penh’s Dangkao district sent a letter on Monday to the district governor asking for his help in addressing the flooding problem that has seen some of their homes collapse and has forced many to seek temporary accommodation elsewhere, villagers ...

Russian sailor Andrey Mantula plans to build what he is calling Cambodia’s first marina off the beaches of Preah Sihanouk province. Mantula, who has lived in Cambodia for one year, is heading up the project. He expects construction to start on October 1 of this year. ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved a loan of $55 million to help transform the rice sector of Cambodia into a viable commercial industry as well as taking care of the land and water resources. ADB’s Climate-Resilient Rice Commercialization Sector Development Program―which will run ...

Cambodia’s Apsara Authority and China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the project of sustainable management of the existing resources for conservation and sustainable development in Angkor World Heritage Site and Siem Reap region. The deal was inked between ...

The construction of Don Sahong Dam, the second of 11 potential and controversial Mekong mainstream dams, is moving ahead without approval from Mekong River Commission members, according to a conservationist group report. Located less than two kilometres from the Cambodian-Lao border, the dam has been slammed ...

The construction of two hydroelectric dams proposed for the Mekong River would lead to steep declines in the availability of fish-an essential source of protein for Cambodians- potentially threatening food security, according to a new report by the fisheries administration. The study by the administration’s Inland Fisheries ...

Dam-building and gold mining in southern Laos are ruining water quality downstream on the Sekong River in Cambodia, where villagers are no longer able to drink or use the water, according to an environmental group. The activities undertaken by Lao and Vietnamese companies on the Sekong’s ...

A reporter from Cheat Sachak newspaper in Ratanakkiri province filed a complaint to provincial military police and rights group Adhoc on Monday, claiming he had been beaten by a group of illegal loggers to stop him from reporting on their activities. Phon Bun Thoen, 53, said ...

Monks residing in Koh Kong’s remote Areng Valley have begun raising funds online to renovate their local temple, despite plans in store for a large Chinese backed hydropower dam that would leave the site completely inundated. The 108-MW hydropower dam, to be built by ...

Cambodia Angkor Air plans to launch chartered flights between Siem Reap and the southeastern coastal Chinese city of Xiamen next month. The national flag carrier plans to take off for China for the first time on July 11, CAA Chairman Tek Reth Samrach said yesterday, the ...

Paying Cambodian farmers to capture carbon by not removing mulch during planting and harvesting would help support climate change mitigation, reduce soil deterioration and return higher yields in the long term, say leading agriculture experts. Speaking at a conference in Phnom Penh last Friday, Professor Rattan ...

The Fisheries Administration and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) on Friday officially launched a program to protect Cambodia’s coastline from over-fishing, erosion and other damage to coastal environments and livelihoods. Since the beginning of the year, the program has been training local officials ...

The Ministry of Interior has said six Cambodians were shot dead by Thai forces in the course of a month, in a rare report outlining the impact of the ongoing trade in luxury rosewood, and authorities’ efforts to curb it. The report also says that ...

The government does little to protect the rights and livelihoods of the country’s many ethnic minorities who are under constant threat from rapid development, representatives of indigenous groups said yesterday. “We have polices laws and guidelines to protect indigenous people, but we see that it doesn’t ...

Human rights workers and other civil society groups on Wednesday urged the competing political parties for July’s election to address the ongoing land crises and illegal deforestation that are hurting indigenous populations. About 100 people from various ethnic minority groups from five provinces attended a forum ...

Although currently there are a lot of development projects for resorts and guesthouses on various islands off Cambodia’s coast, experts say it is not the right time for such developments. Po Eavkong, managing director of Asia Real Estate Cambodia, said the development activities on islands in ...

The elusive Mekong giant catfish, which the U.S.-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) called “one of the world’s largest and rarest freshwater fish,” can reach up to three meters (10 feet) and weigh up to 300 kilograms (660 pounds). The Xayaburi dam would prove an “impassable barrier” ...

Since 2007, the NGO Pact has been working with the government to turn 68,000 hectares of forest in Oddar Meanchey province into a moneymaking venture for the state just by keeping trees in the area standing. ...

More than 700 villagers from five provinces yesterday protested in front of the provincial government headquarters in Kompong Chhnang after losing their community forests to large agro-industry firms. Organized by the Cambodian Grassroots People’s Assembly- a network of communities that includes forestry and land activists as ...

When a bridge and kiosk collapsed into a pond at a Phnom Penh garment factory last month, injuring more than 20 workers, the Prime Minister’s Bodyguard Unit and police rushed to scour the murky water for survivors. Some hours later, those forces remained unsure whether any ...

Sporting red bandanas and armed with the accoutrements of Khmer black magic, several hundred demonstrators representing embattled communities throughout the country held noisy protests outside several government offices yesterday, where they placed curses on corrupt officials and submitted written petitions demanding justice. Unlike previous protests that ...

The foreign ministers of Thailand and Cambodia signed a memorandum of understanding in Phnom Penh yesterday reconfirming their commitment to developing their joint border with new economic zones, checkpoints and a 1,800-MW power plant. “We have agreed to create four international checkpoints to improve trade ...