Environment and natural resources

Since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced an ambitious new plan some 10 months ago to make nearly half a million families official land owners, hardly a week goes by that a rural community does not complain of local officials trying to scam the project. But when ...

A community forest patrol group trying to fight the destruction of protected forest in Kratie province’s Snuol district have, for the second time in two weeks, seized equipment from those they accuse of illegal logging. About 100 people from Svay Chreah, Snuol, Sre Cha, Pi Thnou ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will travel to China on Saturday to meet with the rising superpower’s new leadership, in a trip the government expects to yield nearly $2 billion in loans and aid. Most significantly, the Government is hoping to secure Chinese funding for a 1.67 ...

Officials from the Stung Treng provincial forestry administration have warned a local SRP commune chief against speaking to the media about the clearing of trees from a 36,000-hectare site to become the reservoir of a giant hydropower dam in the area, the commune chief said ...

As many as 40 workers are cutting down trees, marking other trees they plan to fell in protected forest areas and piling up luxury timber in a flood-safety zone in Stung Treng’s Srekor commune, a local official said yesterday. Commune chief Seak Mekong said the workers ...

Mondolkiri and Kompong Thom provinces could suffer some of the most extreme effects of climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin region, such as a high incidence of flash floods and droughts by 2050, according to a new study. Analyzing temperature and rainfall from 84 provinces ...

The water shortage that has led to tens of thousands of households in Sihanoukville without running water for the past week occurred after provincial officials decided to limit power to a water pumping facility operated by the tourist town’s privately-owned distributor, a manager at the ...

Workers in Stung Treng province have begun clearing forested land with chainsaws in order to make way for the reservoir of a massive hydropower dam that has drawn ire from local villagers who say they have not been informed about the dam’s construction plans. The National ...

A water shortage in the tourist town of Sihanoukville has led authorities to advise scores of businesses to dig their own wells as only 50 percent of local demand is currently being met after high temperatures dried up the water supplier’s only reservoir. On March ...

Climate change will have a significant effect on major industrial and food crops in the Lower Mekong basin countries of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, says a new study. The study, conducted by the Mekong Adaptation and Resilience to Climate Change Project for the U.S. Agency ...

The Pursat Provincial court on Friday charged Krakor district’s judicial police bureau chief for taking bribes in order to allow illegal fishing in the Tonle Sap Lake, officials said yesterday. [Hong Bunthoeun] stands accused of accepting bribes to allow illicit fishing in parts of the Tonle ...

Advocacy groups, environmentalists and policy-makers have wrapped up five days of events surrounding Mekong River issues in Washington. “Mekong Days,” a series of talks, films and other forums that ended Tuesday, highlighted issues in the region, where some 60 million people live. The Mekong River, a major ...

China’s expanding investment portfolio in Cambodia has brought into sharper focus the darker side of the Asian giant’s “development projects” in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. And it is in the southwestern corner of Cambodia—known for its rich biodiversity, forest covered hills and bubbling rivers—where this ...

The recent power shortages have left residents of Phnom Penh out in the heat and dark, but amidst their mounting frustration, state-owned energy supplier Electricite du Cambodge (EDC) has announced it will be purchasing more power from Thailand to address the shortfall. Keo Rattanak, director-general of ...

Cambodia’s national electricity provider yesterday appealed to the public to unplug from the national energy supply in an effort to alleviate chronic seasonal power shortages that are causing blackouts across Phnom Penh and the rest of the country. Eletricite du Cambodge (EdC) published an announcement asking ...

‘I heard a f—ing crazy dog say that we can’t dock in Kampong Saom, but we definitely can do that,” a crackling voice declares boisterously. The speaker, captured in video obtained by the Post, is part of an illegal timber syndicate. The identity of the speaker ...

Lawmakers from the European Union (E.U) are again urging the block’s trade commissioner to investigate Cambodia’s Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) over a raft of alleged rights abuses and consider revoking the duty free access their owners currently enjoy to member states. Going mostly to industrial ...

Police have cracked down on illegal large-scale rosewood smuggling at the Cambodia-Thai border in the district of Malai. In the sting operation Tuesday night, led by Banteay Meanchey prosecutor, Phan Pirom, the authorities have seized around three tons of rosewood, hidden in the truck bed used ...

On a farm in Kampong Speu province, Erm Rim is talking to a small crowd of consumers and journalists, explaining the process of growing vegetables using only natural resources. Rim talks on the sidelines of a consumer field trip organised by the Cambodian Center for ...

As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense. “Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are ...

A week after British researchers released a study warning that the nation’s grasslands would soon be lost if drastic action was not taken to protect them, some agricultural experts have called for moderation, noting that the intensive rice cultivation blamed for the grasslands’ destruction is ...

The Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) yesterday discussed means of safely stocking industrial chemicals, with the hope of reducing environmental pollution in the region. At a conference on sustainable manufacturing practices, Sok Narin, the head of UNIDO ...

Villagers who confiscated land-clearing equipment during a forest patrol yesterday in Khsuem commune in Kratie province’s Snuol district are claiming the equipment belongs to a rubber concessionaire attempting to expand into state land, an allegation local authorities denied. Villager representative Mom Sokkin said the Binh ...

Jarai ethnic minority villagers appeared at Ratanakkiri provincial court yesterday, demanding compensation from a Vietnamese company they say illegally cleared 30 hectares of community land in November last year. Chea Chanrith was granted a licence from the Ministry of Agriculture last year to clear land ...