Environment and natural resources

Okhna Try Pheap’s ballooning empire of exclusive natural resource licences and concessions has been expanded even further with the granting of a special economic zone (SEZ) in Ratanakkiri province. The May 27 issue of the Royal Gazette reveals Pheap was granted a 136-hectare SEZ in O’Yadav ...

Conservation officials have confiscated a truck containing 20 cubic metres of illegally cut, luxury-grade timber from an economic land concession owned by the firm TTY Corporation, a district official said yesterday. Kratie provincial officials seized the logs, along with two trucks and two cars on Monday ...

Rising global temperatures could greatly exacerbate flooding in Southeast Asian countries such as Cambodia, as well as parts of Africa and South America, a new study by the University of Tokyo has found. Employing 11 different climate models, researchers found that with a mere rise ...

Land Management Minister Im Chum Lim awarded a community of ethnic minority Banong in Mondolkiri province a communal land tile to their ancestral land last week, only the eighth communal land title to be handed out since the 2001 Land Law made them available. The title ...

Prices in the global carbon market are too low to provide an incentive for Cambodian businesses to engage in carbon offset schemes, but there are other options for businesses to gain funds for emission reduction, industry experts say. Speaking on the sidelines of a two-day educational ...

About 200 people celebrating World Environment Day on Wednesday gathered in front of the National Assembly to submit a petition asking the government to stop the destruction of Cambodia’s forests. A report released by the WWF last month said that Cambodia has lost almost a ...

Communities living in the protected Snuol wildlife sanctuary in Kratie province said yesterday that the sanctuary was being destroyed by private companies acting in collusion with local wildlife officers. Snuol forest community representative Mom Sakim said private interests were claiming large areas of the sanctuary without ...

The hunt for oil around northwestern Cambodia has unearthed “positive” results for Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC), which intends to continue exploring the area in a project that could last at least six more years, a government spokesman said. JOGMEC’s survey on the ...

The parent company behind a firm constructing the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng has repeatedly violated Chinese law by building “massive” power projects without prior approval, China’s national auditor has found. State-owned China Huaneng Group, of which Lower Sesan 2 partner Hydrolancang International Energy ...

About 200 people from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia affected by hydropower dam projects on the Mekong River and its tributaries gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday to share their experiences of how their lives have been adversely affected since the dams were constructed. Speaking at the ...

Logging baron Try Pheap’s MDS Import Export Co, Ltd has been granted a licence to collect and process the controversial plant known as yellow vine around the Stung Atay hydropower dam in the Cardamom Mountains, according to documents received by the Post yesterday. The vine has ...

Cambodia and the United States on Friday signed a Memorandum of Understanding on low emissions and climate resilient development in Cambodia, according to a press statement from the U.S. Embassy to Phnom Penh. The deal was inked between Cambodian Minister of Environment Mok Mareth and Rebecca ...

More than 300 ethnic Jarai families from Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district in longstanding land disputes with two Vietnamese land concessionaires submitted a petition to UN human rights officers yesterday asking for help. Village representative Romas Chvat said locals were participating in an NGO-led workshop on protest ...

More than 100 Banong ethic minority villagers in Mondolkiri province on Wednesday stopped and briefly apprehended a group of 11 outsiders who they say were caught illegally logging timber in the area, villagers said yesterday. The villagers say that they took it upon themselves to stop ...

A 34-year-old Vietnamese man was arrested and put into pre-trial detention on Monday in Ratanakkiri province for allegedly putting a veritable menagerie on the black market. Prom Nol, Forestry Administration chief officer with Wildlife Alliance’s Wildlife Rapid Rescue Team, said yesterday that the raid on the ...

A Ying Dong Shoes representative yesterday denied claims his factory employs workers as young as 13 and shares an owner with Wing Star Shoes, where two died in a ceiling collapse on May 16. Chan Kosal, a representative of Ying Dong, a supplier to Asics, said ...

Severe rain and hail storms hit several provinces on Tuesday leaving one person dead, more than 10 injured and nearly 200 houses destroyed or damaged, the National Committee for Disaster Management reported yesterday. ...

Plans to create a tourist circuit encompassing coastal areas of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand could be delayed as infrastructure is not yet in place and authorities cannot find investors. The sea route from the Mekong River Delta province of Kien Giang to Sihanoukville in Cambodia and ...

Cambodia’s share of modern biomass in total energy consumption is among the highest in the world, according to a report released Tuesday by the World Bank and the International Energy Agency. The report also found that growth in Cambodia’s dependence on renewable energy excluding traditional biomass ...

More than 1,000 villagers in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district have signed a petition pro­testing the removal of a crematorium that is currently on land slated for a large development project. According to a letter from the Council of Ministers addressed to the Ministry of Cults ...

Geopacific Resources, an Australian mineral exploration company, said it has extended the zone of copper found in Preah Vihear province’s Kou Sa district to 18 kilometres, the company announced yesterday. ...

Ten tons of rosewood have been uncovered under cassava roots in a raid late night Monday. The raid took place in the village of Ou Klakmom in the Song commune of the Samlot district and was made with the collaboration between park preservationists, military officers and ...

Two firms holding concessions in rapidly disappearing northern forests are amassing stockpiles of tens of thousands of luxury logs cut both within and outside their leases and trucking them on to Vietnam, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights has alleged. CCHR investigators that tracked logging operations ...

The Garment Manufactures Association of Cambodia (GMAC) and International Labor Organization’s (ILO) Better Factories Cambodia yesterday asked factory owners to voluntarily conduct structural audits on their buildings in light of building collapses at two garment factories that killed two people and injured 23. “In the ...