Agriculture and fishing

Eleven village representatives from Stung Treng and Ratanakiri provinces traveled to Phnom Penh yesterday to meet with National Assembly lawmakers and appeal for an end to the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam. The hydropower project, funded by Vietnam Electricity, will flood tens ...

If the government continues to grant economic land and mining concessions at the current rate, there will be no more arable land left in the country to give away within one year, a researcher from the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights said yesterday. Pointing to the ...

A government committee yesterday approved a draft sub-decree aimed at protecting the endangered Mekong River dolphin and will send it to the Council of Ministers within a few weeks. Among the provisions contained in the sub-decree is the creation of a 180-km-long conservation area stretching ...

The government yesterday moved to protect endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in the Mekong River, announcing plans for a 180-kilometre-long conservation area that would stretch from the Lao border through Stung Treng province to Kratie town. Touch Seang Tana, chairman of the Commission for Conservation and Development of ...

The total number of land concessions offered by the government to private agro-industrial firms hit 1.19 million hectares, or 13.5 percent of Cambodia’s total land mass, a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday. The government figure undermines figures released late last year ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday extended indefinitely a ban on commercial fishing in Tonle Sap lake, citing ongoing illegal fishing to the detriment of local villagers. The premier had first imposed the ban on 35 fishing lots in the lake in August, as a result of ...

Representatives of more than 300 families in Battambang province’s Bavel district yesterday urged government officials to intervene in a land dispute with provincial authorities and a businessman. Representative Thuy Ry said the 305 families had lived on the 3,638 hectares of land in Ampil Pram Doeum ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday that he would permanentlycance all 35 fishing lots on the Tonle Sap lake – which had already been suspended in recent months – and turn them into a conservation zone to protect the lake’s pressurized wild fisheries, on which ...

Agriculture Minister Chan Sarun said yesterday that Cambodia currently produces only half as many vegetables as it needs to meet demand and that more needs to be done to remedy the situation. “Cambodia only produces 40 to 60 perent of its needs and imports, the ...

Cambodia’s economy is expected to grow 6.5 per cent in 2012, up from 5.75 per cent last year, the International Monetary Fund said in its annual review, adding that government policies to boost the investment climate were paying off. However, in its assessment, which was released ...

Representatives from five communes in Koh Kong province are scheduled to hold a press conference in the capital today, appealing for government intervention in a land dispute with a Chinese development company that has spanned nearly four years. Lov Hov, a representative from Thmar Sar commune, ...

Several RCAF soldiers sent by Banteay Meanchey provincial authorities to defuse a protest against an agro-industrial company Friday allegedly shot their weapons into the ground near a group of protesters, a villager and a rights worker said yesterday. The approximately 200 villagers were attempting to ...

Rocks were hurled, fires lit, hostages taken and the message delivered in no uncertain terms last week: Cambodians are increasingly willing to use violence against companies that intimidate them or ignore their demands. Twice – in Svay Rieng and Kampong Cham provinces – garment workers pelted ...

Pailin’s juicy longans, a small beige-colored fruit renowned for its sweet taste, is on the way to becoming Cambodia’s third food product to attain Geographic Indicator (GI) status. The longan will join Cambodia’s only other GI-recognized food products: Kompong Speu palm sugar and Kampot ...

Villagers being questioned in relation to a land dispute with a powerful company said on Friday that a Ratanakiri court official had intimidated them by urging them to accept an out-of-court settlement with the firm or face a countersuit. Court officials denied the claims and said ...

Two days after Ratanakiri province villagers took hostage a group of local officials who were clearing land for a rubber plantation, authorities downplayed the incident, saying they had no plans to press charges and that “the problem has been settled.” A representative of the rubber company, ...

Ethnic minority Tumpoun villagers yesterday delivered a thumb-printed petition to commune, district and provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri demanding intervention in a Lumphat district land dispute after villagers held five rubber plantation company employees hostage on Tuesday. Five employees of Jing Zhong Ri Cambodia Co Ltd were ...

Garment-making has been a mainstay of Cambodia’s fledgling economy, chalking up between 6 and 7 percent annually for the past four years. But, the country is turning its focus back to the land in the hope that rice growing and other farming produce, will lift growth ...

The price of gasoline rose to a 5800 riel ($1.44) per liter Monday, a 14 percent rise since the beginning of the year. Economists and businesses yesterday said the high prices are having a negative impact on the economy, as everything from transportation companies to ...

The clearing of land for a Ratanakkiri rubber plantation had been frozen after more than 300 Tumpoun ethnic minority villagers captured a quartet of company security guards and another staffer, tied them up and held them hostage on Tuesday, company officials said yesterday. Jing Zhong Ri ...

For 53-year-old farmer Ros Mao, it’s not just the early bird that catches the worm. The Takeo province farmer has raised millions of earthworms for eight years in Tram Trak district, selling the slimy red creatures and using the manure they create to grow his ...

Child labour was draining the Kingdom’s brainpower and adversely affecting 750,000 of its children, officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said yesterday. Speaking at a three-day conference on child agricultural labour, Kaing Khim, deputy director-general of fisheries administration at the MAFF, said ...

Investment in Cambodian rubber plantations increased by 255 per cent in 2011 on rising global demand for the commodity. There were 20 new projects worth US$675 million in the Kingdom last year, according to data from the Council for the Development of Cambodia. There were nine ...

The bilateral relations between Cambodia and China in terms of investment, trade and tourism have become stronger in the past year thanks to the two countries’ good relations, said officials Friday. Cambodia attracted China’s investments of 1.19 billion U.S. dollars in 2011, up 71 percent from ...