Environmental and biodiversity protection

Rangers from the Sre Pok Wildlife Sanctuary in Mondulkiri province intercepted two men and a minor allegedly smuggling more than 50 wild animals on Saturday evening, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Koh Nhek district police. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will leave for Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia this week for the two-day Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) summit starting on July 15. ...

A start-up initiative aimed at reducing plastic waste in the Kingdom is asking locals and expats to live plastic-free in July. The goal of the campaign is relatively simple: eliminate plastics’ harshest offenders from daily consumption. That means plastic straws, bags, bottles, cups and Styrofoam, or ...

The Cambodian government has signed off on the Kingdom’s first dedicated marine protection area in a bid to save the Koh Rong Archipelago’s coral reef and sea life. ...

Cambodia’s freshwater Mekong dolphin population has increased by four, adding a quartet of calves in the first five months of 2016 while also seeing a drop in the mortality rate compared with last year. ...

 Tuy Sereivathana sits at his desk transfixed by the glow of his computer screen. On the walls of the environmentalist’s modest office are hung pictures of rare species of plants and animals found in the Cardamom Mountains, one of Cambodia’s few remaining wildernesses. ...

Cambodia suffers from one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world, with an average of one percent of the country’s forest lost each year. But in an initiative funded by USAID Supporting Forests and Biodiversity (SFB), Winrock International hopes to help solve the problem ...

Officials and environmentalists have congratulated Vietnam and the United States on a recent climate changed agreement signed between the two former adversaries, saying the co-operation will have a positive impact on mitigating the effects of the phenomenon in the region. ...

An environmental youth group has asked the National Assembly’s head of the Environment and Water Resource Commission, Pol Hom, to visit and investigate the pollution that will be caused by construction of Laos’ Don Sahong hydropower dam. ...

A patrol in Seima Protected Forest in Mondulkiri last weekend found a young great hornbill near an illegal logging site. Hornbill sightings have become rarer as the bird’s population drops. ...

An attempt by about 100 Cambodian protesters to force the Angkor Beer company to divest its stake in the Don Sahong hydropower plant in Laos fell flat on Friday when company representatives said the brewer has no involvement in the project. ...

Only 80 Mekong River dolphins remain. Conservation efforts are underway in Cambodia but these unique animals are facing a new threat from a mega dam in neighboring Lao. ...

An endangered white-winged duck was scheduled to be released into the wild in Preah Vihear province yesterday, after being rescued earlier this month.​ ...

The return of tigers to the Cambodian wild edged a little closer this week, as the wildlife charity spearheading the project sent a representative to India to see how numbers were boosted there and to discuss bringing big cats from the subcontinent to the Kingdom. ...

A steady stream of tractors loaded with timber clambered along the dirt roads heading out of the Phnom Aural Wildlife Sanctuary last week, some carrying cheap firewood, others loaded with more valuable logs. ...

Decades after poachers stripped the forests surrounding Angkor Wat of large mammals, an innovative conservation group is bringing them back. Already, Wildlife Alliance has rewilded the forest with gibbons and langurs. And more are coming. ...

A freshwater Mekong dolphin was found dead yesterday morning on a river bank Prek Prosob district, Kratie province, where only only about 80 Mekong dolphins remain, according to officials. ...

Settlers and rangers have cleared 200 hectares of Samlot Protected Forest in Battambang and Pailin provinces, according to local authorities and staff of the Maddox Jolie-Pitt Foundation, which is helping to protect the area. ...

Preah Sihanouk provincial authorities have told residents around the Kbal Chhay waterfalls to leave the area or risk being ejected, amid concern over pollution of the popular tourist attraction. ...

A Vietnamese national was charged yesterday with smuggling elephant tusks and parts into Cambodia in what wildlife advocates have dubbed a landmark case.Ream Chan Mony, a deputy prosecutor at Siem Reap Provincial Court, said 43-year-old Vu Le Thuy was charged with “smuggling illegal wildlife and ...

Elephant conservation NGO Ears Asia has been ejected from Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot province and forbidden from caring for its two elephants, amid mounting pressure for a proposed animal swap involving the pair to be called off.In a statement posted on their Facebook page ...

Forestry Administration officers confiscated the hacked-up body of an illegally hunted sambar deer in Mondulkiri province on Sunday, though the poacher avoided arrest by escaping into the protected forest where the bust took place. ...

Hirakawa Zoo in southern Japan has confirmed it plans to send endangered white tigers to Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot province, despite deplorable conditions and evidence of psychological damage among the animals at the Cambodian zoo.A senior official from the Japanese zoo stated that the ...

Two elephants living at Kampot province’s notoriously grim Teuk Chhou Zoo are set to be swapped for endangered species with a zoo in Japan, despite deep concern among experts over the suitability of the trade.Teuk Chhou owner Nhim Vanda yesterday said elephants Kiri and Seila ...