Environment and natural resources
Environment and natural resources policy and administration
NGO says work on Don Sahong dam under way
A conservation group has said its recent trip to Laos revealed that construction on a controversial hydropower dam decried by neighbouring Mekong countries is already under way. International Rivers representatives visiting the proposed site of the 260-megawatt Don Sahong Hydropower Project earlier this month say they ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ngo-says-work-don-sahong-dam-under-way
Cambodia’s parliament OKs dam compensation plan
Cambodia’s energy minister allayed concerns in parliament over inadequate compensation offered to villagers who face relocation for a proposed China-backed dam on a Mekong River tributary, saying the government has allocated to villagers more than four times the area taken over for the project. Minister of ...
Joshua Lipes
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/dam-06192014195419.html
‘Tiger’ falls prey to linguistics
Tigers and black bears look nothing alike, but their identical names in some Khmer dialects left some thinking that one of Cambodia’s most endangered species may be attacking people in the Cardamom Mountains. Sitting outside his Santre commune home in Pursat province’s Kravanh district, with bandages ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98tiger%E2%80%99-falls-prey-linguistics
Activists put blame on local police
Activists working in Prey Lang forest have accused military and police officers of being behind two illegal timber hauls they have intercepted. In the first case, an estimated 50 cubic metres of timber being transported through Kampong Thom’s Sandan district on homemade tractors was found last ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activists-put-blame-local-police
Tiger claim to be probed
Conservationists Fauna and Flora International was to send a team to Pursat province today to investigate a man’s claim that he was attacked by a tiger. Ngem Nget, a 51-year-old farmer in Phnom Kravanh district’s Santre commune, reported that while foraging in the Cardamom Mountains on ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tiger-claim-be-probed
Living on a dwindling trade
In Samrong Leu village, a picturesque community nestled deep in the verdant fields of Kors Kralor district, the acrid smell of smoke fills the air. Outside almost every house in this community, billows of smoke continuously emerge from the domes of homemade mud kilns, drifting around ...
Kevin Ponniah and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/living-dwindling-trade
‘Tiger’ attacks man in forest
A Pursat man’s reported encounter with a tiger in the Cardamom Mountains has left him injured and in fear, but it has left experts in doubt. On Sunday afternoon, Ngem Nget, a 51-year-old farmer in Phnom Kravanh district’s Santre commune, walked into the woods to forage ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya and Sean Teehan
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98tiger%E2%80%99-attacks-man-forest
Monks Protest Developer’s Construction on Disputed Grounds
About 400 monks and villagers protested Sunday outside Wat Koh Puthivong pagoda in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district to protest what they say is a real estate company’s encroachment onto the pagoda’s land, including an island that monks consider sacred. During the protest, dozens of young ...
Six Arrested For Bulldozing Flooded Forest Area
Military police joined forces with the Fisheries Administration in Kompong Thom province on Friday to arrest six men and confiscate four bulldozers being used to clear protected flooded forest in Stong district’s fisheries conservation area, officials said Sunday. District military police commander Khun Bunho said that ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/six-arrested-for-bulldozing-flooded-forest-area-61453/
Floating houses come back
A fishing community that abandoned a stretch of the Tonle Sap river in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district earlier this month after dead fish began appearing in the water have brought their floating houses back home, authorities and community representatives said yesterday. The 29 families who ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/floating-houses-come-back
Study finds Cambodia most vulnerable to climate change
US credit ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has ranked Cambodia’s economy and creditworthiness as the most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Of 116 nations measured by S&P as part of a vulnerability index published last month – with a number 1 ranking being the ...
Eddie Morton
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/study-finds-cambodia-most-vulnerable-climate-change
Back on timber patrol
When Cambodia’s most prominent forest activist, Chut Wutty, was gunned down in April 2012, the community network he created to sabotage the rampant deforestation of this vast forest fragmented. The forest patrols that he organised nearly ground to a halt. Without money to fund large-scale expeditions, ...
May Titthara and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/back-timber-patrol
Cambodia, FAO ink deal to battle climate impacts on agriculture
The Cambodian Ministry of Environment and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Monday signed a five-year cooperation agreement with an aim to reduce climate impacts on agriculture, according to a joint statement. The agreement was inked jointly by Cambodian Minister of Environment Say ...
Global Post News Staff
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/xinhua-news-agency/140609/cambodia-fao-ink-deal-battle-climate-impacts-agriculture
Thai border shooting wounds man: officials
A 21-year-old Cambodian man was allegedly shot by Thai soldiers on Thursday after crossing the border to illegally log rosewood, officials in Oddar Meanchey province said yesterday. Nhan Sarom, O’Smach deputy commune chief, told the Post> that border soldiers opened fire on a group of more than ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thai-border-shooting-wounds-man-officials
Of Fish, Monsoons and the Future
As the sun rises on Tonle Sap Lake, fishermen head out from floating villages like this one, past half-submerged mangroves and flooded shrub land, to check their nets, much as they have for centuries. Every year, the lake yields about 300,000 tons of fish, making it ...
Chris Berdik
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/10/science/of-fish-monsoons-and-the-future.html?_r=2
Sambo’s return to city nixed
Sambo the elephant will not be allowed to return to work in Phnom Penh, because both City Hall and the Forestry Administration oppose the idea, the FA’s director-general said yesterday. The 54-year-old Sambo left the city in 2012 after decades of entertaining and giving rides to ...
Kevin Ponniah and Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sambo%E2%80%99s-return-city-nixed
Cambodia to diversify
Cambodia Ministry of Tourism hopes to encourage international tourists to visit coastal areas and ecotourism destinations to take pressure off Siem Reap. The ministry’s marketing & promotion department representative, Hou Sokhom, told TTR Weekly that the country needs to encourage tourists to travel more to other ...
Wanwisa Ngamsangchaikit
http://www.ttrweekly.com/site/2014/06/cambodia-to-diversify/
Endangered wild cattle discovered in northwest Cambodia
A British conservation group says its hidden cameras have taken photos of a wild cattle species in an area in Siem Reap province where it was previously thought to be extinct. In a statement released Wednesday, Fauna and Flora International said the cameras recorded six individual ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=YTczNGU3YzIzOGN
Cambodian PM vows to protect environment for sustainable development
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday that environmental protection is the most important measure to ensure the sustainable development of economy and society. In his message on the 42nd International Environment Day that falls on June 5, Hun Sen said the government is committed to ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=NDc1ZjhjNDQ2MzF
Flying squirrel and eyeless spider discovered in Greater Mekong
A series of high-flying creatures, including giant flying frogs and squirrels and a parachute gecko, are among the hundreds of exotic new species recently discovered in the greater Mekong region in southeast Asia. A new eyeless spider and a fish that mates head-to-head are also highlighted ...
Damian Carrington
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jun/04/flying-squirrel-and-eyeless-spider-discovered-in-greater-mekong?CMP=fb_gu
New Zealand provides Cambodia with 3.7 mln USD to preserve Angkor Wat
The government of New Zealand on Wednesday signed up to provide Cambodia with 3.7 million U.S. dollars for the preservation and protection of Angkor Wat Temple, one of the world heritage sites, said a news statement from the Cambodian government. Bun Narith, director general of Apsara ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-06/04/c_133383466.htm
Rainfall still a month away, says ministry
The Ministry of Water and Meteorology has warned farmers of a rainfall shortage forecast to last at least another month, with average daily temperatures also forecast to remain above average. The announcement, issued on Monday, says that up until mid-July Phnom Penh, Kandal, Kampong Speu, Takeo, ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/rainfall-still-month-away-says-ministry
Indigenous communities say authorities collude with loggers
Indigenous villagers in Mondolkiri province say relevant authorities that are supposed to crack down on forestry crimes instead collude with logging companies and powerful businessmen, allowing them cut down trees. That has put their forest tribal traditions and livelihoods, which are dependent on forests, in ...
Cambodian Villagers Express Helplessness to Protect Forest
Prey Lang is one of Cambodia’s few remaining large forests, covering approximately 3,600 square kilometers across four northern provinces. The forest is home to about 200,000 mostly indigenous people, who depend on it for their livelihoods, according to the Prey Lang Community Network. But, the ...
Say Mony
http://www.voanews.com/content/illegal-logging-in-cambodian-forest-worries-natives/1928013.html