Forests and forestry

The body of a 100-kilogram Irrawaddy dolphin from Cambodia was found dead in Vietnamese territory and repatriated to its home waters yesterday, officials said. Im Phat, deputy chief of the Fishery Administration in Takeo province’s Angkor Borei district, said two endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins – fewer ...

At least 2,800 bears in Asia were traded for their parts over the past decade, according to a report issued Thursday by an anti-wildlife trafficking group. The figure was arrived at after analysing nearly 700 bear-related seizures, and it likely represents a fraction of the overall ...

Laos has suspended the construction project of controversial 260-megawatt Don Sahong hydropower dam on the lower Mekong River following requests from other countries, newly-designated Laos ambassador to Cambodia Prasith Sayasith said Tuesday. ...

At dawn on the Dangrek Mountain range, 62-year-old logger Suon Song* uses an empty beer can to boil water for his morning coffee. He’ll need it to stay alert during the illegal and dangerous work ahead, after the first of several sleepless nights in the ...

Military police in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district on Monday were duped into letting a detained immigration official walk free just hours after he was arrested for alleged involvement in the cross-border illegal timber trade, police said yesterday. District military police chief Sok Min said yesterday that ...

The U.N.’s human rights representative in Cambodia visited ethnic Bunong villagers in Mondolkiri province this week, days after local authorities prevented hundreds of them from marching to mark International Day of the World’s Indigenous People. Wan-Hea Lee met with villagers in Pech Chreada district’s Bosra commune ...

An immigration official at the Ministry of Interior’s office in Ratanakkiri province was arrested yesterday, accused of illegal logging, district police said. O’Yadav police chief Sok Min said provincial court prosecutor Liv Sreng led military and police officials on a car chase that ended with the ...

An annual vulture census carried out across Cambodia has recorded the second lowest population estimate for ten years. The new figures follow a major vulture poisoning incident that occurred in Cambodia’s Mondulkiri Protected Forest back in february when 13 vultures were found dead. This is the largest ...

Villagers in Mondolkiri province this week seized four trucks transporting luxury-grade timber out of a plantation they accuse of logging outside its government-granted land concession and turned the haul over to local authorities. The ethnic minority Banong villagers accuse Villa Development, which owns a local rubber ...

A provincial police officer appeared for questioning at the Pailin Provincial Court on Tuesday after military police, led by a local wildlife NGO founded by U.S. actress Angelina Jolie, caught him transporting more than 177 kg of illegally logged rosewood on Sunday. Sor Phalla was arrested ...

A conservation group may release 20 baby Siamese crocodiles into the Areng Valley amid an ongoing stand-off between villagers and a Chinese firm over the construction of a controversial hydropower dam in Koh Kong province. Tuy Serey Vathana, country directory at Fauna and Flora International, said ...

Fish and rice are staple foods for all Cambodians. Historical records show that Cambodia’s fisheries have been of major importance for centuries. Fish is a major source of nutritious food in the daily diet, a primary source of employment and income and has strong cultural ...

Military officials in Banteay Meanchey province have removed a local platoon commander from his post for alleged wood smuggling after he evaded detention by fellow soldiers earlier in the week, but it remained unclear whether he would be fired or prosecuted. Phork Sambath, a deputy military ...

Try Chamroeun, a 19-year-old student, was planting soybeans on Sunday along with fellow villagers on a two-hectare (half-acre) plot in Preah Vihear province, when soldier Poeun Tash demanded that he stop, claiming the land belonged to his military boss, according to London-based environmental advocacy group ...

In what is the government’s latest pledge to hold tycoons and foreign investors to account for their business practices, the Ministry of Environment will begin assessing existing and proposed economic land concessions (ELCs), cancelling or rejecting those that have negative social or environment impacts, a ...

Rights groups have called on the government to increase tax rates for logging companies amid the latest domestic revenue figures. According to the Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, timber exports produced $9.4 million in government tax revenue during the first half of the year, up ...

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear ...

The destructive threat posed to Angkor Wat by pollution is being taken seriously, the Apsara Authority said in a statement it released Friday in response to recent media coverage of the issue. Responding to an article initially published by GlobalPost under the headline “In Cambodia, toxic ...

Amid promises reiterated by the government yesterday that it will take a tougher stance on economic land concessions, logging tycoon Try Pheap minimally reduced his sweeping natural resource empire, returning more than 20,000 hectares of undeveloped forestry. It was unclear what kind of arrangement prompted Pheap ...

A newspaper editor and a suspected illegal logger have been arrested over the shooting of a senior forestry official in Mondolkiri province earlier this month, according to police. Pum Poeun, the 48-year-old editor-in-chief of Borei Angkor newspaper, was arrested in Phnom Penh on Sunday. Len Kamry, ...

Forest activists accused of destroying private property told a court hearing in Kampong Thom province yesterday that they were acting to protect mainland Southeast Asia’s largest evergreen forest from illegal logging. ...

Desperate to cut down on illegal logging, Kampong Thom forestry officials are trying out a new strategy: disarming loggers before they can get to the trees by cracking down on chainsaw dealers and other sellers of equipment used to fell trees. On Sunday night, the Baray ...

Three reporters and a publisher were arrested in two separate cases of attempted extortion in Stung Treng and Kratie provinces on Sunday after stopping vehicles suspected of carrying illegally logged timber, according to local authorities. Mom Mon, 54, and Kim Noeun, 28, reporters for the Sangkum Khmer and ...

Over the past six months, 19 “vulture restaurants” have led to a slight rise in the number of the birds spotted in Cambodia, according to a recent Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries report. Contrary to the name’s sound, the vultures aren’t the dish being served ...