Environmental and biodiversity protection

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 ...

Forestry officials confiscated 13 cubic meters of illegally logged timber in Stung Treng City on Saturday after discovering the wood hidden in a pond and the surrounding underbrush, an official said Sunday. ...

As deforestation in Cambodia’s forests has grown in recent years, more and more citizens have come together to fight against it. Now, a group of 300 people are going to campaign for awareness about the destruction of Prey Lang, the largest evergreen forest in the ...

Faced with Cambodia’s rapid deforestation, a group of monks and environmental groups want to replenish Cambodia’s natural world. ...

In Cambodia’s wildlife sanctuaries, conservation areas and national parks, forests are falling as fast as anywhere else. ...

CNRP lawmakers have written to Prime Minister Hun Sen asking him to stop the ongoing illegal logging of northeast Cambodia’s Virachey National Park, which they said they witnessed during a recent trip and blamed on businessmen An Mady and Try Pheap. ...

Despite a minor car crash on the way to Preah Vihear yesterday, more than 100 environmental activist monks will today march into Prey Lang forest to ordain trees and promote environmental awareness. ...

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 ...

Activists in Prey Lang forest yesterday seized chainsaws and illegally felled timber from a group of loggers as they continued to “ordain” the woodland’s largest trees in an effort to stop further offences. ...

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. ...

The World Wildlife Fund has called for closer cooperation between Cambodia and Laos to protect the Mekong River dolphin, in the wake of the death this week of a female thought to be one of less than 85 left in the river. ...

A network of about 400 activists completed a five-day patrol of the unprotected 650,000-hectare Prey Long forest in the country’s north Sunday, seizing and burning illegally logged wood and confiscating chainsaws from those they discovered felling trees. ...

A 200kg Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead at the border between Stung Treng province and Laos, bringing the dolphin death toll for 2015 to five, authorities said yesterday. Villagers in Koh La Ngor, in Preah Rom Kel commune, discovered the carcass on April 1, according to ...

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 ...

Experts involved in the protection of Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, have lauded the successes of an ongoing conservation scheme, and offered cause for optimism that the animal can overcome its current status as critically endangered. ...

Twenty-eight hard-shell turtles and eight snakes – weighing more than 50 kilograms – were seized from a minivan in Kampong Thom’s Kampong Svay district on Wednesday. ...