Environmental and biodiversity protection

The Ministry of Environment on Thursday denied that a private agro-industry firm had been issued an “unofficial” land concession inside Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, as stated on Monday by the provincial governor. In response to claims by local officials that Daun Penh Agrico Co. Ltd. ...

A district-level Environment Ministry official in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday claimed that he had no way to determine the legality of logging operations by firms with private land concessions inside the province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. The claim by Chou Sopheak, director of Lumphat district’s environment department, ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has released a nine-month status report on 2013’s illegal timber seizures, saying it had confiscated, among other things, more than 2,000 kilograms of rosewood – a figure that represents only a tiny fraction of seizures reported by the Post this ...

Thai forestry officials killed three Cambodians who were illegally logging on Tuesday, in what they said was a shootout in Thailand’s Sisaket province, a border official said Wednesday. The latest deaths bring the number of Cambodians who have been shot while logging across the border this ...

An “unofficial” land concession granted earlier this year to an agro-industry firm that has logged luxury hardwood in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary is in violation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 moratorium on new economic land concessions (ELCs), a government spokesman said Tuesday. Phay Siphan, ...

Logging tycoon Try Pheap’s rapidly expanding land empire, criticised by rights groups for displacing families and encroaching on protected forest areas, has grown to almost 70,000 hectares in size and is helping to facilitate a cross-border illegal logging operation, a report released today alleges. The Cambodian ...

Vietnamese rubber firm Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) has failed to keep its commitments to address human rights and environmental abuses at its plantations in Cambodia, Global Witness said in a statement yesterday. In May, the London-based NGO published an investigation into two Vietnamese rubber companies ...

An Eco-tourism initiative in Mondulkiri province will remain open for daytime visits only for the time being, after authorities heard from officials at the Elephant Valley Project (EVP) and locals who complain the NGO siphons tourism money. EVP officials met with people who filed complaints with ...

An environmental group has hit out at the Lao government for organising a tour of the proposed Don Sahong hydropower dam site, saying it should not be trying to “sell” a project that has not been regionally approved. Other NGOs have also warned of the ...

Mangrove forests along Cambodia’s coast in Kampot support more than 100,000 families and create a diverse ecosystem that is home to hundreds of unique species. But coastal development projects, coupled with locals’ reliance on the forest for their livelihoods, threaten to decimate more than 1,000 hectares ...

A wounded female Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead in the Mekong River in Kampong Cham on Saturday. The 130-kilogram dolphin was discovered by residents in Kampong Siem town, significantly south of the species’ protected area, according to fishery administration officials. ...

Fauna and Flora International says its has found three previously unknown populations of the endangered Indochinese hog deer in Cambodia. “This is a remarkable discovery given not only the species’ vulnerability to hunting, but also because all of the sites were outside the existing protected area ...

Cambodia has recorded some 973 white-shoulder ibis in its wild, making the country the stronghold for this critically endangered species, the conservationists group said Thursday. BirdLife International and its partners including Cambodian Forestry Administration, People Resources and Conservation Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society and Worldwide Fund for ...

An eco-tourism initiative in Mondulkiri hit a snag this week when authorities asked management to vacate overnight guests while provincial officials determine whether the project is properly licensed to operate a guesthouse. Guests of the Elephant Valley Project (EVP), which is located in a Forestry Administration ...

Forestry Administration officers sent two suspected wildlife smugglers to court in Stung Treng province yesterday after they were arrested while allegedly smuggling disembodied heads and hooves of the increasingly rare Chinese serow – a type of wild goat – into Cambodia from Laos, officials said. Provincial ...

Provincial military police confiscated three tractors transporting three metres of luxury wood and two circular saws travelling out of Kampong Speu’s protected Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday. Chea Hean, director of Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organisation (NRWPO), arrived to investigate illegal logging in the sanctuary ...

Loggers in Prey Lang forest are under scrutiny once again, after a 21-year-old man was charged with illegally clearing and occupying state-owned land. Kampong Thom Provincial Court yesterday put suspect Ven Nak of Sandan district’s Dang Kambet commune under pre-trial detention, said Khin Vannak, a deputy ...

Ratanakkiri’s deputy provincial governor called local authorities and community representatives last week to explain the alleged deforestation of eight hectars of preserved land around the Ou’Sinlair waterfall. Situated in Lumphat district, Ou’Sinlair is a popular eco-tourism destination in the province. But logging over the years has ...

A teenager was killed and a man was badly injured on Friday while they were illegally clearing forest land for an unidentified businessman on the border of Stung Treng and Kratie provinces, officials said. Kam Dek villager Chhoun Pourn, 17, and Kam Yun, 40, were ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Thursday charged an opposition CNRP commune chief with smuggling protected forest products after he was arrested while transporting logs to sell in Vietnam, officials said. Sev Nhang, who was elected chief of Batang commune in O’Ya­daw district for the Sam Rainsy ...

Hundreds of villagers in Preav Vihear’s Kulen district cut down a palm tree on Monday and used it to block provincial officials attempting to confiscate tonnes of luxury timber from their village, their representative said yesterday. Ri Sothun, a spokesman for more than 400 families in ...

A group of endangered Asian elephants found dead in Mondulkiri province on Sunday were likely slaughtered, investigators from conservation group WWF-Cambodia have found. The organisation said in a statement yesterday an investigation into the deaths in protected Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary suggested the elephants were “slaughtered ...

The discovery of the remains of three endangered Asian elephants in Mondulkiri’s Phnom Penh Prich Wildlife Sanctuary has prompted conservation group World Wildlife Fund to launch an investigation into the animals’ deaths. Samrang Dy Vichet, director of the Wildlife Sanctuary, told the Post yesterday that villagers spotted the ...

Logging tycoon Try Pheap has come under fire from two separate reports alleging that he is using his vast network of concessions and licences to decimate protected forests across Cambodia. One of the reports, an exhaustive four-month investigation by a local NGO, also looked at the ...