Environment and natural resources

The Koh Kong Provincial Court had postponed until October 22 the verdict of Rann Boroth, the man charged with the accidental killing of a military police officer who allegedly killed environmental activist Chut Wutty in the Cardamom Mountains in April. Though rights groups have criticized the ...

Thousands of cubic meters of luxury wood is being shipped from Cambodia to China each year, according to official Chinese import documents shown to The Cambodia Daily. According to the data, some 36,000 cubic meters of logs under the “rosewood” category have been recorded entering China ...

Three members of the family of murdered journalist Hang Seri Oudom will appear in Ratanakkiri provincial court on Wednesday, according to their lawyer. Oudom, who exposed illegal logging in the area for the Virakchun Khmer newspaper, disappeared last month when he left his house at night ...

A week after Prime Minister Hun Sen announced that he would be cancelling an unknown number of economic land concessions in Prey Lang forest, activists called for details on the annulled concessions, saying such revocations would be meaningless unless they could be policed. On September ...

Environmental protection group Global Witness has added its voice to the growing criticism of the Koh Kong Provincial Court’s decision to end its investigation int the murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. The decision to drop the case “can only be described by as the latest ...

The Danish company Go4 Bunker, which has developed their “Smart bunker system” in partnership with Shenfei Group Co and Maersk Broker K/s, wants to partner with Cambodian companies to develop not only the Cambodian Offshore Marine Fuel Oil Business, but also related business in connection ...

Authorities are preparing to evacuate more than 150 families from Banteay Meanchey province’s O’Chrou district, should flooding in the area get worse due to heavy rainfall and runoff from a dam that opened its gates in Thailand on Monday. The families’ homes are already affected by ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday said it had dropped its investigation into the killing of environmental activist Chut Wutty, allegedly by a now-deceased military police officer in April. The court made the surprise announcement during the tril of Rann Boroth, who took the stand yesterday for the ...

Five months after the fatal shooting of forestry activist Chut Wutty, Koh Kong Provincial Court dropped his case yesterday morning, saying they would only be looking into the shooting of the man who allegedly killed Wutty – a trial that wound up lasting less than ...

New European legislation passed last month could help transparency in the extractive industries, by forcing companies to declare payments to foreign governments rich in resources For resource-rich countries like Cambodia, that means much more transparency, she said. More than 95 percent of the world’s major extractive ...

International tourist arrivals into Cambodia have soared in the past year, with arrivals into Siem Reap up 30 per cent in the first eight months of 2012 over the same period the previous year. The tourist industry was hit hard by the global economic crisis in ...

Provincial authorities arrested eight Vietnamese fishermen who illegally crossed into un-demarcated Cambodian waters in Kampot province on Tuesday. The two boats were intercepted by river police in the early morning while they were trawling, Touch Poleak, deputy director of the water border protection department, said.   Sar ...

The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology yesterday warned that a tropical storm, which is forecast to hit the coast of Vietnam this weekend, will worsen flooding across much of Cambodia. ...

Cambodia is among the tropical countries whose forests are being cleared using increasingly advanced methods to feed a growing global trade in illegal timber worth at least $30 billion a year, according to a new report. The report, Green carbon, black trade, a joint effort by ...

Due to rising water level in Thailand’s reservoirs caused by heavy rainfall, the Thai government announced the opening of a dam in Sa Kaeo province, located about 20 km from the Cambodian border. This decision will potentially affect 10,000 Cambodian families in Poipet, Serei Sophorn ...

Thai authorities yesterday opened a dam near the Cambodian border, a move that could worsen flooding and affect thousands of people in Banteay Meanchey province, according to Cambodian officials. Mr. Vanda [vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM)] said the excess water ...

Disputed figures surround the flood death toll in Banteay Meanchey province. Yesterday, Banteay Mean­chey city hall spokesman Keo Ratanak rejected reports that more than 10 people had drowned in the province as a result of the flooding, saying: “The exact number is seven.” But according to numbers ...

Fisheries Administration patrols increased on the Mekong River in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces to prevent fishermen from using dai fishing methods as the seasonal fish migration period begins. However, the Fisheries Action Coalition Team (FACT), an umbrella group of national and international organizations, said the ...

China’s dam building spree on the upper Mekong River raises new tensions over water resources Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang obviously had China in mind when he warned recently that tensions over water resources are not only threatening economic growth but presenting a source of conflict Cambodia, ...

The long-term impact of 6 tons of toxic chemicals that spilled into a stream in Kompong Chhnang province on Tuesday, killing several hundred kilograms of fish, is still unclear, the provincial department of environment said on Friday. The chemicals, identified as the cleaning agents Ridoline 560, ...

An estimated 100 kg of fish were killed and about 1,000 villagers were told not to drink from a stream that was contaminated with 6 tons of an unknown chemical substance in Kompong Chhnang province on Tuesday night, police said. A truck carrying 22 containers of ...

Officials yesterday confirmed that the Cambodian government will receive a majority of the revenue share from Chevron’s offshore Block A oil permit area near Sihanoukville in the Gulf of Thailand. The government expects to issue the American oil giant a production permit licence by the ...

Unable to effectively police the Cardamoms alone, the Cambodian government partners itself with several international NGOs. The forests directly north of Highway 48 arc patrolled with the help of Wildlife Alliance. Beginning in 2002 with two ranger stations, Wildlife Alliance now operates six outposts in the ...

Cambodia is working on three fronts to improve its energy security and supply, including the development of its first oil-producing asset, looking for ways to resolve a disagreement over disputed territory in the Gulf of Thailand, and studying the economic viability of building its own ...