Environment and natural resources

Villagers belonging to a Thai activist group filed a complaint to Thailand’s Administrative Court yesterday for the cancellation of an agreement form the country’s Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand to buy power from a controversial mainstream Mekong dam in Laos, an NGO representative said yesterday. “According ...

Political activists and watchdog organisations say Cambodia’s US$13 million revenue from the mining sector over the last five years is exceedingly low and that the government must be more transparent. The claims come after the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy (MIME) released its figures on the mining ...

Sarorn Phi, 39, cautiously stops his moto 20 metres away from the large, signless boom gate blocking his path in Sesan district. He shuffles toward the security guard’s hut at the entrance to a sprawling Chinese rubber plantation and negotiates with the guard to enter ...

When 41-year-old Pheng Seng’s brick-making business was ravaged by flood in Kratie province a year ago, he lost about US$5,000. Kratie town also flooded this time a year ago. It was so bad that speedboats were seen zipping through the streets past submerged motorcycles with ...

For Cambodian farmer In Chanthy, illuminating the rural night used to be tiresome task. His village in Svay Rieng province is not connected to the national electricity grid and to light the dark he would have to take car batteries to a station and pay ...

In a rare victory for those battling to preserve Prey Lang forest, the government has cancelled four economic land concessions in the area totalling more than 40,000 hectares that threatened pristine ecosystems. Another 3,200 hectare ELC in Koh Kong province has also been cancelled, while two ...

Phnom Penh: “Cambodia is needing $ 1 billion over the years or at least 100 million annual investment to develop renewable energy projects for rural electrification in order to reduce its dependence on diesel consumption,” said Mr. Toch Sovanna, Director of Departmemnt of Energy Technique, ...

For the past several days, Boonma and seven other Houay Souy villagers have travelled back to their homes near the Xayaburi Dam building site on the Lao side of the Mekong River. Since the beginning of the year they have been relocated to a new ...

Nineteen families from Pursat province’s Prangil commune, plagued by a long-running land dispute with developer Pheapimex, are in despair now that student volunteer surveyors cannot help them reclaim land they say is rightfully theirs. Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday revealed he had revised his ...

The Philippines has summoned Cambodia’s ambassador over comments linked to Manila’s territorial row with Beijing. Hos Sereythonh was asked to explain remarks accusing the Philippines and Vietnam of playing “dirty politics” over the issue of Asean and the South China Sea. [H]e did not turn up on ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Thursday charged six people, including a provincial director of water resources and a commune chief, for their involvement in creating illegal fishing reservoirs in Kompong Thom province. “They were charged with clearing a flooded forest for encroachment and illegally constructing ...

In his first public meeting in weeks, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An on Friday met with a delegation of Thai officials in Phnom Penh and pledged Cambodia’s commitment to resolve a decade-old maritime dispute over contested maritime space in the Gulf of Thailand. Speaking to reporters ...

On Saturday, the family of slain environmental activist Chut Wutty will commemorate the 100 days, or thereabouts, that have passed since his death in a case that remains unresolved even though six eyewitnesses have already been questioned. The official story is that he was killed by ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday questioned six people, including a provincial director of water resources and a commune chief, over allegations that they cleared part of a flooded forest in Kompong Thom to illegally construct reservoirs on the Tonle Sap. Earlier this month, military ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday charged two government officials and four farmers from Kampong Thom province’s Stoung district with encroachment onto protected land after they allegedly bulldozed a flooded forest that was designated as a protected fish hatchery, police and NGO officials said. ...

Cambodia’s first Marine Protection Area will be established around two emerging tourist destinations, Koh Rong and Koh Rong Samloem islands, a British conservation group has announced. NGO Coral Cay Conservation said last week that it has been invited to map out a 300-square-kilometre MPA by the ...

The Lao government’s refusal to halt the construction of a controversial mainstream Mekong dam is “making a mockery” of an agreement between the four Mekong countries, international conservation group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said yesterday. Though Laos had agreed in December to suspend construction of the ...

Banteay Ampil district, Oddar Meanchey province – The families of Beng commune have new neighbors: a battalion of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers building a military base inside one of 13 pockets across the province aiming to be the first forest-based carbon trading scheme ...

A decision on whether to build the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in northern Laos is a life and death one that will affect Cambodians downstream, according to Foreign Minister Hor Namhong. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Namhong said the controversial 1,260-megawatt hydropower dam has ...

Foreign Minister Hor Namhong on Friday put the blame for last week’s failure among Asean countries to release a joint communiqué on territorial disputes in the South China Sea firmly back on Vietnam and the Philippines. More than a week since discussions related to the territorial dispute between Asean’s members ...

Villagers from Svay Rieng province’s Krasaing commune have vowed to continue their protests to preserve a patch of community forest earmarked for clearing, despite receiving an official warning yesterday. Residents said it would affect over 2,700 people. ...

In the first six months of the year, 26 Cambodians have been shot dead by the Thai military while illegally logging along the border, nearly double the number killed in all of 2011. “According to the Cambodian-Thai Relations Bureau documents for the semester, there were 26 ...

About 2,000 kilograms of Kran-houng luxury timber worth tens of thousands of dollars and a Toyota Camry car were seized by authorities in Oddar Meanchey province’s Anlong Veng district on Wednesday, military police said yesterday. ...

Cambodian farmers often turn to pesticides when trying to stop insects from destroying crops, but the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (Cedac) has come up with a better idea: frogs. “Frogs are important to protect rice plants from damage by insects, especially during ...