Rivers and lakes

China’s expanding investment portfolio in Cambodia has brought into sharper focus the darker side of the Asian giant’s “development projects” in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation. And it is in the southwestern corner of Cambodia—known for its rich biodiversity, forest covered hills and bubbling rivers—where this ...

The recent power shortages have left residents of Phnom Penh out in the heat and dark, but amidst their mounting frustration, state-owned energy supplier Electricite du Cambodge (EDC) has announced it will be purchasing more power from Thailand to address the shortfall. Keo Rattanak, director-general of ...

Cambodia’s national electricity provider yesterday appealed to the public to unplug from the national energy supply in an effort to alleviate chronic seasonal power shortages that are causing blackouts across Phnom Penh and the rest of the country. Eletricite du Cambodge (EdC) published an announcement asking ...

A week after British researchers released a study warning that the nation’s grasslands would soon be lost if drastic action was not taken to protect them, some agricultural experts have called for moderation, noting that the intensive rice cultivation blamed for the grasslands’ destruction is ...

The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund has committed to provide another $10 mln U.S. in grants to address the environmental crisis engulfing mainland Southeast Asia. The ground-breaking biodiversity fund was launched in 2008. During the first phase, $10 mln was invested in efforts to conserve the critical ...

An updated documentary, “Where Have All the Fish Gone?,” examines the impacts of hydroelectric dams on the Mekong River. The Xayaburi dam, which would produce hydropower for market, has become a divisive issue among Mekong River countries. Critics say it could severely damage ecosystems on which ...

Residents of a village in the middle of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap “Great Lake” live surrounded by water, but don’t have enough access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing. The Tonle Sap, a combined lake and river system that swells in the rainy season to ...

Around half of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a ...

The 16th Conference of Parties of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) has brought thousands of delegates from over 150 countries to Bangkok to discuss cross-border cooperation, sustainable use of biodiversity and transnational endangered species issues. Construction has already begun on the ...

In the past four years, families in Anlong Chrey village, in Kampong Speu provinces’s Thpong district, have watched a small multipurpose dam being built at their back doors. For village chief Soung Pao, 59, who gave up two hectares for the dam – one of ...

As examples, Laos broke ground on a new Mekong River dam that’s causing concern bordering on fury in Cambodia and Vietnam. India is enraged about a new Chinese dam going up on the Brahmaputra River. And Ethiopia’s new dam on the Nile is angering Sudan, ...

The government has announced plans for a landmark project to create a system for diverting and then stocking waste water, in a bid to prevent run-off into the streets of Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap river. Moeung Sophan, a consultant to the Phnom Penh Department ...

One hundred and thirteen Jarai families from Ratanakkiri’s Bakeo district are sending a letter of protest to the provincial fishery administration today, after a Vietnamese rubber company  started filling in a lake that they had promised last month to preserve for villagers. Rochom Ven, chief of ...

More than 500 villagers from Stung Treng and Ratanakiri provinces held a traditional sacrificial ceremony yesterday, calling on a local spirit to help in postponing the construction of a 400-megawatt hydropower dam in Stung Treng’s Sesan district. Siek Megong, Srekor commune chief, said the villages ...

The Cambodian government has commenced operations at the 18MW Kirirom III hydro power plant in the southwestern part of the country. The facility will produce 78 million KWh of electricity a year and help the country reduce its power shortage crisis and dependence on oil-fueled electricity. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Saturday inaugurated the third in a string of six Chinese-funded hydropower dam projects, offering lavish praise for the superpower as he officially opened the $47 million Kirirom 3 dam in Koh Kong. “I am really pleased for the new ...

Cambodia’s focus on hydropower will reduce its independence on oil and ensure nationwide access to electricity at a stable price, Prime Minister Hun Sen said in a speech Saturday during the inauguration of a $47.1 million hydropower dam in Koh Kong province. However environmental groups ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yeserday lauded his government’s strong ties with China but said Cambodia does not give Chinese any preferential treatment. Mr. Hun Sen was speaking at the inauguration of the $47.1 million Kirirom III hydropower dam in Koh Kong province’s Sre Ambel District- constructed ...

The government launched Thursday a $200 million project to divert water from the Mekong River to irrigate 300,000 hectares of rice fields in Prey Veng, Svay Rieng and Kampong Cham provinces. Under the first phase, estimated to cost $100 million, canals will be restored between ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday that all Cambodian villages would have electricity by 2020 while 70 percent of households would have power by 2030. Hun Sen said average per capita consumption of electricity rose at an annual rate of seven percent over the past ...

In the hilly wilderness across southwestern Cambodia, the foundations of the country’s strengthening bonds with China are taking root. It is there that large dams supported by Chinese money are being built to literally bring the impoverished Southeast Asian nation out of darkness. The largest of ...

Villagers near the Sesan River in Stung Treng province are a step closer to being forced to make way for a hydropower dam following a National Assembly vote on Friday, but they are no closer to learning the details of such a move, a community ...

Cambodia’s parliament on Friday approved a law providing financial guarantees for the developers of a planned hydropower dam on a Mekong River tributary, despite opposition from civil society groups seeking to delay the project. Villagers campaigning against the Lower Sesan 2 dam in northeastern Cambodia’s Stung ...

Nean Narin, a humble man and father of three children, says his family is going hungry. Narin lives in the village of Boeung Kak, situated on the edge of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. For years, he and other villagers relied on the Boeung Kak Lake ...