Environment and natural resources

China’s demand for natural resources is being felt in a big way in Cambodia. Illegal logging and economic land concessions are threatening Cambodia’s dwindling forests, which now echo the sound of chainsaws. Prey Lang forest — an eight-hour journey north and east of the capital, Phnom Penh ...

Laws protecting ethnic minorities’ communal land rights are good, but their implementation has a long way to go, said participants in a forum of minorities from Mondulkiri and Kratie provinces yesterday. After July’s parliamentary elections, legislators should take the opportunity of a newly constituted government to ...

More than 100 villagers in Preah Vihear province have accused a group of Chinese-owned sugar plantations of encroaching on their farms and community forests since mid-2012 and say they are still waiting for a resolution. Sen Som, a rice farmer in Chheb district, said Heng Rui ...

Ethnic Bunong villagers living in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district have sent a petition to the Ministry of Land Management, urging the government to refrain from issuing them private land titles, local officials said yesterday. This way they may instead to eligible for a communal title ...

Ethnic Jarai families living in Ratanakkiri province’s Borkeo district have accused a Vietnamese rubber company of digging a channel to drain a lake the indigenous villagers use for fishing and irrigation, a local official and rights worker said yesterday. Rochom Vin, Yeak Som village chief, said ...

Senior members of the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) yesterday seized about a tonne of luxury rosewood near the house of a two-star general in the Choam Ksan district of Preah Vihear province after a night hunting for illegal smuggling. General Ngeth Chanthon, deputy general of ...

Exports of Cambodian fish and shellfish products reached 1,618 tonnes last year, worth $3.5 million, a 16 per cent increase from 1,391 tonnes in 2011, according to figures from the Ministry of Commerce. “A major share of the total exports last year was from saltwater fish ...

Thousands of villagers who will lose their land to the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province later this year have not been told of the government’s plans for their resettlement and compensation, a new study released yesterday shows. Through interviews with ...

The southwestern areas along the Vietnam – Cambodia border are now in their usual busy time of the year, with smuggled goods entering the country with near impunity. Most of the markets in the Mekong Delta are flooded with various contraband products, mostly brought from China ...

Worldwide, office demand stemmed from the automotive, high-tech and energy industries. The latter is evident in Cambodia, where drilling off the coast near Sihanoukville has helped to increase office demand. Thus, companies such as Total and Chevron are large office occupiers, and new Japanese oil ...

Members of the Prey Lang Community Network yesterday called on the government to approve a forest preservation sub-decree that has been in draft form since 2011. Hoeun Sopheap, representative of the Kampong Thom provincial Prey Lang community, said the sub-decree would help protect the biodiversity of ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday ordered officials to take action against unnamed companies he said were using the cover of night to illegally dredge sand from the Mekong River. Calling on Water Resources and Meteorology Minister Lim Kean Hor to lead the crackdown, Hun Sen also ...

A local conservation group yesterday called for several changes to a draft sub-decree meant to turn Cambodia’s Prey Long Forest into a protected area, concerned it could end up harming, rather than conserving, the forest. ...

After closing the last of its 19 petrol stations in Cambodia in April 2010, Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) is again eyeing the country’s oil and gas (O&G) sector. This will see Chevron and its partners developing the country’s first offshore oil field this year. According to ...

Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5 billion hydropower dam pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday after a meeting of the Mekong River Commission. The activists said Cambodia, also downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos during heated discussions on Wednesday and ...

The Kompong Thom Provincial Court yesterday charged two men with illegally logging 65 pieces of rosewood, the courts director Pen Sarat, said. Provincial police said the two 19 year old men were arrested Saturday morning while transporting about 1 105 kg of rosewood in Prasat ...

More than 8,000 hectares of land was cut from economic and forest land concessions owned by some of the country’s biggest tycoons and awarded to villagers last month, according to documents from the Council of Ministers. Four sub-decrees signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen order that ...

Laos yesterday defended its decision to begin building the Xayaburi dam amid criticism from Cambodia on a lively final day of the Mekong River Commission’s annual council meeting in Luang Prabang, Laos. According to separate sources who attended, Cambodia spoke out against Laos for “misinterpreting” the ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sentenced 28 people – including several government officials – to between two and five years in jail on charges of clearing state-protected flooded mangrove forest in Kampong Thom province in July of 2012. Presiding Judge Keo Mony said that Cheath Sivutha, ...

Regional conservationists criticised the Mekong River Commission (MRC) yesterday for leaving the controversial Xayaburi Dam off its agenda at this week’s annual ministerial meeting in Luang Prabang, Laos. Laotian authorities said they would confirm their decision to go ahead with the hydropower project in the mainstream ...

During a joint investigation with police and military police last week, the Forestry Administration found evidence of large-scale illegal logging by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, officials said yesterday. ...

On the heels of a year in which the deaths of endangered Irrawaddy dolphins rose – as much as 100 per cent by some estimates – the government is paving the way for greater enforcement of conservation measures along a protected stretch of the Mekong. Touch ...

When ministers from the four member countries of the Mekong River Commission and donors meet in Luang Prabang, Laos this week, the future role of the agency will be on the table. Questions about the effectiveness of the Mekong River Commission, set up in 1995 to ...

A new tourist promenade is to open in the heart of Phnom Penh’s old French quarter. Scheduled for a February opening, the tourist walk zone will provide an outdoor leisure area on street 13 that will be closed to cars and motorbikes on weekends from ...