Environment and natural resources policy and administration

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. ...

Deep in the forest, about an hour from Stung Treng’s provincial capital through a rough and difficult road, just over half of the houses in an ethnic minority village have been tagged with bright orange spray paint saying, “LSS2”. According to a 2010 environmental impact ...

ANGKOR GOLD CORP. (ANK) (“ANGKOR” or “ANGKOR GOLD”) announces that approval from Cambodia’s Ministry of Mines and Energy has been received to proceed with an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) on Cambodia’s first royalty-generating gold mine at Phum Syarung. The total area of 12 sq km ...

Cambodia plans to open bids for concessions on 19 onshore oil and gas exploration blocks to promote investment in the sector, a senior official at the country’s Ministry of Mines and Energy said on Wednesday. The Southeast Asian country is also keen to talk with international ...

Mirach Energy Ltd. announced Monday that its associate company, CPHL (Cambodia) Company Limited (the Company), has received the approval from the Ministry of Environment in Cambodia for the Initial Environmental Social Impact Assessment Report (IESIA) report for drilling in offshore Cambodia (Block D). ...

Construction of the Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River in Laos is almost half finished, the developer behind it has said. ...

Two large trucks carrying 60 cubic meters of luxury wood were confiscated on Saturday after their drivers unsuccessfully attempted to barge through a roadblock of cars set up by the Forestry Administration in Kompong Cham province, officials said. ...

Representatives from an ethnic Bunong community in Mondolkiri province filed a complaint with a district governor against a commune police chief on Thursday after he allegedly cleared trees belonging to villagers in Pech Chreada district’s Krang Tes commune, officials said Friday. ...

Companies contracted to carry out social and environmental studies of the proposed Stung Cheay Areng dam in Koh Kong province yesterday confirmed that the Sinohydro Group is set to renew work in the Areng Valley in the coming days. The studies, which would pave the way ...

Six sawmills in Preah Vihear province suspected of processing illegal timber were raided on Monday by police, military police and Forestry Administration officers who confiscated an undisclosed amount of luxury-grade wood product during their searches, an official said. ...

Six environmental organisations opposing Laos’ controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam yesterday took their complaints to a new level: The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia. In a 23-page letter, the organisations from Cambodia, Thailand and the US collectively requested an investigation into the trans-boundary impacts of the ...

Nearly 80,000 tons of Cambodian river sand has been sitting at a seaport in India for nearly two months, the second haul to turn up there in two years, despite a 2009 ban on the export of river sand handed down by Prime Minister Hun ...

Cambodian government has revoked licenses of economic land concessions of three companies in Koh Kong, Preah Sihanouk and Kampong Speu provinces, according to sub-decree. The sub-decree dated October 7 said 1,635 hectares of economic land concessions have  been taken back from Vimean Seila LTD, Vatanak Co., ...

Pailin provincial authorities are searching for a suspect who allegedly commissioned the excavation of a gold mine on land the protection of which is funded by the foundation of American actress Angelina Jolie. Provincial environmental police are holding three men at a spot where they were ...