Environment and natural resources

Kampong Chhnang provincial authorities on Saturday intercepted and seized a truck loaded with 300 kilograms of live snakes and tortoises, though the wildlife traders managed to escape, a provincial Forestry Administration official said yesterday.​ ...

A group of about 1,000 families living in Siem Reap province’s Phnom Kulen National Park will be relocated to prevent them from continuing an environmentally detrimental trend of clearing land, building homes, selling and repeating, the environment minister said on Thursday. ...

More than a month after confirming its investigation into new reports of rampant timber trafficking between Cambodia and Vietnam, the Environment Ministry remains tight-lipped about what—if any—progress it is making, but says the U.K. NGO that exposed the scale of the problem is itself being ...

According to the figures, Vietnam imported 21,670 cubic metres of sawn wood valued at $13.7 million in April, a 27 percent drop compared to February and an almost 50 percent decrease compared to March. ...

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) yesterday released 150 endangered Asian giant softshell turtles into the wild as part of a “community protection programme”, the organisation announced. Gathered from nests guarded by local communities, including former egg harvesters, the hatchlings were released into their natural habitat ...

The consultation process for the controversial proposed Pak Beng dam in Laos concluded on Monday, allowing construction to begin even as local and international civil society groups continued to urge a delay until a forthcoming Mekong River Commission (MRC) environmental assessment is released later this ...

The top military and police officials in Mondolkiri province have opened investigations into some of their soldiers and officers after a news story claimed they were involved in timber trafficking into Vietnam. ...

Local communities in the Tonle Sap Lake region have appealed to the Laos government to immediately put on hold plans to construct the Pak Beng hydropower dam. ...

The wife of the Srekor commune police chief in Stung Treng province has been charged and placed in pre-trial detention for possessing some 400 logs of luxury wood near the couple’s home. ...

The government body charged with managing the Angkor Archaeological Park on Monday started tearing down the first of more than 500 homes and shophouses illegally built within the park in the weeks before the June 4 commune elections. ...

A Vietnamese national reputed to be a prominent illegal timber trader is believed to have fled to her native country after the Oddar Meanchey provincial governor ordered her arrest last week. ...

Two farmers caught with dead monkeys in Mondolkiri province’s Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary have been charged with poaching endangered wildlife.   ...

About 30 villagers escorted two environmental activists from Kandal province’s Sa’ang district to the relative safety of Phnom Penh yesterday after the pair were allegedly harassed by local police for helping coordinate a protest against sand dredging in the area the day before. ...

The increase in commercial dry-season rice cultivation in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap floodplain is threatening the survival of the critically endangered Bengal florican, a new study suggests. ...

Cambodia plans to have an ambitious environmental code adopted by the end of this year, according to a legal adviser with the law firm helping to write the legislation, though conservationists yesterday remained wary about how it would be implemented. ...

In the first and only day of her trial yesterday, prominent alleged timber trader Heng Samnieng claimed that Military Police officers had tried to sell off pieces of timber confiscated by authorities in Stung Treng, where she was arrested in October while allegedly attempting to ...

A Cambodian official has said US President Donald Trump’s decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement is “unethical” and “irresponsible”. Tin Ponlok, secretary general of the National Council for Sustainable Development at the Ministry of Environment, said it was “regretful” that Trump decided to abandon the ...

Phnom Penh’s sole garbage hauler says it will need another week to collect thousands of tons of fetid garbage that piled up over the weekend when workers left the capital to vote in Sunday’s commune elections. ...

Massive deforestation is playing a crucial role in the droughts that have devastated Cambodia. But despite an official ban on timber exports, forests continue to be cut down at a record rate.The Cambodian government awarded between 30 and 40 logging concessions to private companies during ...

A man and woman have been arrested after police and Forestry Department officers were tipped off about a pick-up truck carrying luxury timber across Kampong Thom province. ...

Sixteen Cambodians were arrested on Monday for illegally crossing the border to log luxury rosewood trees in Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province. The men, aged between 16 and 55, were all residents of Battambang province. They were arrested in Pang Sida National Park with logging tools and ...

A truck full of high-grade timber was seized in Kampong Speu’s Oral district on Monday afternoon by District Military Police forces and the NGO WildAid’s crime interception team, but the driver remains at large. .. ...

A man was accused of illegally collecting and transporting timber after Military Police officials arrested him with over 2 tonnes of illicit rosewood in Stung Treng on Sunday morning. ...

Fishermen and passengers travelling by sea have been warned to take care as rainstorms lash coastal areas from tomorrow until Saturday. The Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology said big waves were expected off  Preah Sihanouk, Kampot, Kep and Koh Kong provinces.   ...