Forest products
Non-timber forest products
Fears grow as draft laws leave out ‘indigenous,’ allow hunting
Changes to forestry and protected area laws are proceeding without enough public input, communities say, as drafts introduce hunting licenses and remove wording about ethnic minorities. The country’s Protected Areas Law and Forestry Law are being amended by the environment and agriculture ministries, respectively, sparking growing ...
Keat Soriththeavy
https://vodenglish.news/fears-grow-as-draft-laws-leave-out-indigenous-allow-hunting/
People in Teuk Chhou district, Kampot province vow to protect Phnom Toteung community forest for the fear of lost forest
This is what the people of Kampong Chen village, Steung Keo commune, Teuk Chhou district, Kampot province said, Phnom Toteung Community Forest is not only a sanctuary for the people who live in the vicinity of this community forest, they can also enjoy non-timber forest ...
Resin provides boon to local economy
Nearly 300 families in the Sre Trob community in the Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary in Preah Vihear province continue to make a living from their ancestors’ methods of obtaining wood oil or vital resin to sell, which can earn about $450 a month per ...
Voun Dara
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/resin-provides-boon-local-economy
WWF: Ban wildlife trade to avert future pandemics
World Wide Fund for Nature is calling for urgent global action to address factors which it projected would be key drivers in triggering possible zoonotic disease outbreaks in the future. The action comes amid the current COVID-19 pandemic, which has battered countries worldwide. ...
Pech Sotheary
https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50737775/wwf-ban-wildlife-trade-to-avert-future-pandemics
Community-based groups key to natural resource protection
The Non-Timber Forest Products-Exchange Programme for Cambodia (NTFP-EP Cambodia) considers non-timber forest product (NTFP) groups and associations the key to encouraging social and environmental protection in Cambodia, said an NTFP-EP Cambodia press release. ...
Voun Dara
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/community-based-groups-key-natural-resource-protection
Resin brings income for rural people
A project funded by USAID’s Supporting Forest and Biodiversity initiative is helping local communities relying on forests as their means to earn a living by tapping into an alternate source of income. ...
Safiya charles
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/29560/resin-brings-income-for-rural-people/
Villagers prevent police from taking back seized bulldozers
About 150 ethnic Kuoy in Preah Vihear province on Tuesday prevented police and a court prosecutor from taking back a pair of bulldozers the villagers seized last year from a Chinese-owned plantation they accuse of encroaching on their farms. ...
Aun Pheap
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-prevent-police-from-taking-back-seized-bulldozers-79978/
Mondolkiri drivers say officials extort bribes
A group of minivan drivers blocked a highway in Mondolkiri province Tuesday in protest of what they claim is ongoing extortion by government officials of vehicles transporting ready-made furniture. “There are four to five checkpoints and we have to pay between 10,000 to 20,000 riel ...
Khuon Narim
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mondolkiri-drivers-say-officials-extort-bribes-71331/
Stung Treng villagers caught in forestry racket
SIEM PANG DISTRICT, Stung Treng province – For the elite few granted the right to level swathes of woodland in the north of this remote province, the timber trade is worth a fortune. For the Forestry Administration—the government body charged with policing logging—business is also booming. While ...
Phann Ana and Matt Blomberg
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/stung-treng-villagers-caught-in-forestry-racket-60017/
Provincial Capital To Be Built on Teak Forest
The government has granted 322 hectares of state-owned teak forest in the newly formed Tbong Khmum province to the Interior Ministry so that the land can be used to build a new provincial capital, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday. “The government has decided to use more ...
Eang Mengleng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/provincial-capital-to-be-built-on-teak-forest-51553/
Way of life vanishing: villagers
Since 2011, an estimated 3,000 resin trees have been illegally razed by rogue loggers and a land concessionaire operating in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district, villagers claimed yesterday. Resin trees are a vital source of income for the Phnong ethnic community in Sokdom commune, according to Thleuk ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/way-life-vanishing-villagers
Governor Seeks Curb in Rubber Resin Smuggling
Kompong Cham provincial governor Lun Lim Thai on Tuesday ordered authorities to step up long-running efforts to reduce the smuggling of unprocessed rubber resin from the province into Vietnam. Those smuggling resin to processors across the border should be more actively pursued and instead forced to ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/governor-seeks-curb-in-rubber-resin-smuggling-46966/
Rubber Farmers Accuse Big Firm of Encroaching on Their Land
Roughly 100 rubber farmers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district blocked National Road 78A on Wednesday, demanding that authorities take action against a pair of laborers they accuse of stealing resin from their land. The laborers—Math Las, 40, and his wife, Nos Yas, 38—who are reportedly employed ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-farmers-accuse-big-firm-of-encroaching-on-their-land-41712/
Hundreds Protest Over Forest Land Seizures
More than 700 villagers from five provinces yesterday protested in front of the provincial government headquarters in Kompong Chhnang after losing their community forests to large agro-industry firms. Organized by the Cambodian Grassroots People’s Assembly- a network of communities that includes forestry and land activists as ...
Mondolkiri, Kompong Thom Face Climate Threat
Mondolkiri and Kompong Thom provinces could suffer some of the most extreme effects of climate change in the Lower Mekong Basin region, such as a high incidence of flash floods and droughts by 2050, according to a new study. Analyzing temperature and rainfall from 84 provinces ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/mondolkiri-kompong-thom-face-climate-threat-17224/
CEDAC plus honey makes for a sweet deal
Honey collectors from four provinces in Cambodia signed an agreement with the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC) in order to bring more honey to the capital. CEDAC has encouraged farmers from four provinces – Preah Vihear, Kratie, Koh Kong and Mondulkiri – ...
CEDAC sours on honey prices
CEDAC, a domestic agriculture development organisation and the Kingdom’s largest distributor of natural honey, will shrink its purchases of the commodity in the face of rising prices, the company’s president says. Yang Saing Koma said the group would not reach its goal of buying 7,000 ...
Sieam Bunthy, P. 8
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/cedac-sours-honey-prices
Boosting of resin production a way to increase rural incomes
Environmental groups that gathered at the Himawari Hotel in Phnom Penh on Friday said that tens of thousands of rural Cambodians could benefit from the development of the country’s resin industry. At a conference held by the Non-Timber Forest Products Exchange Program for South and Southeast ...