Environment and natural resources policy and administration

China’s state-owned dam builders are failing to keep their promises to protect the planet when developing hydropower projects abroad – increasing the threat of environmental and social problems, according to a new study by green group International Rivers. ...

A Japanese company, A2A Town (Cambodia), has submitted a request to the Cambodian Ministry of Environment to establish helicopter flights from Phnom Penh to Preah Soramrit Kossamak Kirirom National Park in Kampong Speu province.​​ ...

Policymakers and experts gathered at Can Tho city on Friday to discuss and propose an inter-provincial policy for the sustainable management of sediment in the Mekong Delta region.  About 126 companies currently have the licence to extract sand in the region, he said. ...

Representatives of a group known as Cambodia Youth Movement 157, which counts Defense Ministry officials among its leadership, on Sunday handed out money to eviction-threatened indigenous families in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley on behalf of Hun Manet, the son of Prime Minister Hun Sen. ...

Members of local conservation group the Forest Protection Community announced plans last week to use their own staff members to patrol an area of forest in Anlong Veng that could be decimated by illegal loggers within months. ...

Military police in Ratanakkiri province working with the NGO Wildlife Alliance confiscated 40 kg of bushmeat from two vendors at a Banlung City market Thursday morning but let the women go with a warning. ...

The European Union in Cambodia held a panel discussion about climate change on Wednesday in coordination with a United Nations-led global climate change conference to be held in Paris at the end of the year. ...

Cambodia has called for ASEAN countries to support a proposal from Thailand that would recognise wildlife and forest crimes as a new priority in the Southeast Asian association’s transnational crime enforcement program. At a meeting of senior law enforcement officials from ASEAN countries held this week ...

The National Assembly of Cambodia on Monday adopted a draft law on disaster management, aiming to effectively control any natural or man-made disasters through preparedness, mitigation, and timely response. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has dismissed calls from opposition lawmakers to ensure that Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley is turned into an eco-tour destination, saying in a letter that he had already twice addressed the future of the valley. ...

Forestry officials in the provinces of Kratie and Stung Treng confiscated more than 40 pieces of horns and bones, along with over 40 live animals, in raids against wildlife smugglers on Tuesday with the help of the NGO Wildlife Alliance. ...

Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) lawmaker Yim Sovann gave the government four recommendations on what to do to control the response to natural disasters. ...

In anticipation of World No Tobacco Day on Sunday, Phnom Penh’s City Hall called upon tobacco companies to stop the illegal advertisement of cigarettes and for district officials to start enforcing non-smoking zones, in an event at Wat Phnom on Friday. ...

An environmental nongovernmental organization and young Cambodians opposed to sand dredging will petition the country’s parliament and relevant ministries to stop companies from digging up sand in a southwestern province, activists said. ...

A booming natural rubber market fueled by the global tire industry is proving “catastrophic” for endangered species in Cambodia and the rest of Southeast Asia, U.K. researchers argue in a new paper. ...

Officials charged with protecting Cambodia’s Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary are colluding with loggers responsible for felling at least 300 trees each day, according to activists in the area. ...

Villagers in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday detained and handed over to authorities a Vietnamese man who told police that Sos Malen, a local environmental official, had let him into Cambodia to log illegally. Immigration police let the man go, however, claiming to have insufficient evidence ...

About 400 community activists on Thursday set out on a five-day patrol of Cambodia’s sprawling— and unprotected—Prey Long forest to root out illegal loggers and the illicit clearing of the area’s commercial farms, making for the largest patrol by the Prey Long Community Network in ...

The development of two dams on the Lower Mekong River in Laos may have potentially devastating impact on the food security and livelihoods of 60 million people in the area, an international environmental group said. ...

The Ministry of Environment is close to finalising a draft environmental impact analysis (EIA) law for development projects, but NGOs and civil society groups raised concerns that the draft law, as it stands, prevents indigenous people who live on the land from opposing such projects. Speaking ...

Villagers in Stung Treng province displeased local authorities on Saturday by holding a traditional ceremony calling upon a powerful local spirit to curse those behind the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam. ...

The economic impact of climate change in Cambodia could be highly damaging to rural areas and worker productivity, according to a report from American development agency USAID, which applied climate projections for 2050 to today’s Mekong Basin economies. ...

Referring to Cambodia as “my country”, Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, a vocal environmental activist and Spanish national who was deported Monday, yesterday vowed to return and continue his struggle to save the Areng Valley. ...

Thailand’s army has asked Cambodia “not to jump [to] the conclusion” that its soldiers were to blame for the deaths of three Cambodian loggers who were shot dead earlier this month while searching for rosewood across the border, according to Thai media. ...