Hydropower dams

Months ago, Chinese engineers were posting markers for a hydropower dam opposed by villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley. This week, in marked contrast, monks draped trees in iconic saffron sashes as they blessed the very forest the dam would destroy. The saffron robes ...

The controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam, which Laos says it will soon build just a kilometre from the Cambodian border, will not have significant effects on the Mekong River, according to an environmental impact assessment paid for by the dam’s builder. Obtained yesterday, the report – ...

A Stung Treng province district official on Sunday contradicted claims that logging in the area designated for the Sesan 2 dam had ceased a month ago, saying that it had only stopped last week after direct orders from the government to do so. On Thursday, Ministry ...

The government has ordered Ang & Associates Lawyer Co. Ltd., a company headed by well-known businessman Kith Meng, to cease logging in an area of Stung Treng province where a hydropower dam will be built. Sesan district governor Yeang Srey Sary said Thursday that a delegation ...

Danish beer giant Carlsberg, a partner in Cambodia’s largest brewery, Cambrew, said it is not concerned by a call to boycott its popular Angkor Beer brand over a partner company’s investment in a Laos dam. Ben Morton, vice president of Carlsberg’s international media relations and issues ...

Environmental groups and a local community leader in Stung Treng province have called for a nationwide boycott of the popular Angkor Beer brand to protest the beverage company’s links to a controversial hydro­power dam to be built in Laos. Laos announced earlier this month that it ...

As the director of one of Cam­bodia’s largest breweries, Malay­sian businessman Goh Nan Kioh has made millions selling Angkor Beer to Cambodians. But now his latest business venture, a controversial mainstream Mekong dam in Laos, is drawing the ire of environmentalists who believe that it will ...

Developing the Don Sahong dam on the Hou Sahong channel of the Mekong River in Champassak province does not breach the 1995 Mekong Agreement, a senior government official has told local media. Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines, Mr Viraphonh Viravong, made the comment on Thursday, ...

A day after the Cambodia National Mekong Committee (CNMC) received impact assessment documents from Laos for their controversial Don Sahong dam, Cambodian and Vietnamese officials criticized Laos’ lack of transparency on the mainstream Mekong dam. Located less than 1 km from the Lao-Cambodian border, the 240-MW ...

Hundreds of families in Battambang province have been evacuated as authorities ordered a section of a dam to be cut away to release pressure on a reservoir that was threatening to burst and engulf the communities beneath it, as heavy rain continues to cause havoc ...

KOH KONG – The dullness of a rainy day accentuates the lush shades of green rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains in Koh Kong province. Float down the Tatai River and you see bobbing turquoise, red and yellow canoes tied up along the banks—in their vivid ...

While fears have been raised over the imminent construction of the Don Sahong dam in Laos, environmentalists on Monday said Cambodia should not forget that it has a project of its own that would be equally as disastrous to the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands ...

Flooding spread over the weekend as storms hit the country meaning Siem Reap, Battambang and Pailin have all been added to the list of provinces affected by high waters. In Siem Reap province, Nuon Krisna, director of the provincial department of water resources and meteorology, said ...

The World Wildlife Fund, one of the biggest conservation groups, has called for an emergency meeting with the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in the wake of Laos’ decision to proceed with a second dam on the river. There are fears that this move will seriously undermine ...

Laos has notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) that it will go ahead with the construction of the Don Sahong Dam, which environmentalists say could threaten the ecosystem of the Lower Mainstream Mekong and have a severe impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands ...

Hundreds of police and soldiers have been working around the clock since Wednesday to prevent a major dam built during the Khmer Rouge period in Banteay Meanchey province from breaking and flooding as many as eight surrounding villages, officials said Thursday. Heavy rains, compounded by floodwaters ...

In a first step toward clearing villagers from land intended for a planned Koh Kong provincial hydroelectric dam, a Chinese development firm has blocked a road leading to plots where villagers have continued to harvest rice. Officials from Tianjin Union Development Group, which was awarded a ...

Logging has officially begun in Stung Treng province in preparation for the construction of a massive hydropower dam, but local authorities and villagers said Wednesday that the clearing of forest is going unchecked outside the official dam concession area. The Lower Sesan 2 dam was approved ...

The Cambodian government’s plan to build 20 dams along the Mekong River, with a view to boosting energy security, could harm food security and biodiversity in the region, as well as ignite a regional conflict over sharing of the river’s water, a conference has heard. ...

More than 100 families living in Koh Kong’s Kiri Sakor and Botum Sakor districts are on the clock, with an official government decree demanding they vacate their land in less than two months or face the bulldozers of the Chinese firm slated to build a ...

Residents living in the Mekong River basin are expressing concerns over water degradation in the Mekong river and its impact on farming, aquaculture and the livelihood of the millions of people who live in the region. People from Cambodia, Thailand and Viet Nam’s Cuu Long (Mekong) ...

Cambodia’s manufacturing and tourism sectors will face adverse effects from climate change due to the country’s focus on hydropower, according to a report produced jointly by British and Cambodian think tanks. ...

The Kirilo No.3 Hydro-power Station, located in the KOH Kong Province of Cambodia, was recently put into operation. The ribbon cutting ceremony of the Project was held on February 23, 2013 in the power station area. The Project was investigated and designed by HYDROCHINA Mid-South ...

As much as $16 billion of investment is needed in Cambodia over the next decade if the country’s infrastructure is to keep up with the pace of economic growth, ac­cording to a regional think tank. At a seminar in Phnom Penh on Thuesday, Jakarta-based Economic Research ...