Protected areas

Recently, Cambodia’s prime minister signed a series of decrees placing the responsibility of Prey Lang protection with the Ministry of Environment and provincial governments. It’s a promising change, development professionals and conservation activists tell Devex, as a combination of stronger national and local government cooperation ...

An activist in Stung Treng province has been hauled before commune authorities, threatened with a defamation suit and allegedly warned he could be beaten to death for exposing land clearing in his native Thala Borivat district. ...

The Ministry of Environment signed a framework agreement yesterday with Conservation International and the Mitsui Banking Corporation to launch the planning phase of a new REDD+ project for the Prey Lang forest, officials confirmed.   ...

Almost nine years after Cambodia mandated the zoning of all protected areas to shield its most precious parts from development, the government finally zoned its first two sanctuaries last week, though some locals and conservationists doubt the effort will make much of a difference to ...

About 1,000 hectares of protected forest in Mondulkiri province have been logged under the noses of environment officials, rights group Adhoc and community leaders said yesterday. ...

The Kampong Chhnang provincial governor has vowed to ramp up action to protect the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary in Kampong Chhnang province, which he said is rife with illegal logging and kilns.“We are stopping people from getting into the sanctuary and cutting down trees with ...

The Environment Ministry’s annual report revealed 600 forestry crimes in protected areas, while there were nearly 700 cases of fishing, wildlife and land crimes. The report, released yesterday, showed that rangers, in collaboration with relevant parties, managed to prevent and suppress offenses at national parks, wildlife ...

The number of illegal logging sites discovered within Prey Lang forest between April and July was 14 percent higher than the previous four-month period, according to a report released yesterday by the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) based on data collected with a novel smartphone ...

Alleged illegal logging and timber exports continue to happen in the Prey Lang forest, while drug trafficking in the area is also on the rise, according to the latest Prey Lang Com-munity Network (PLCN) report yesterday. The fifth monitoring report on the forest’s status from April ...

The Environment Ministry has started it’s process of recruiting 300 new forest rangers to work in select provinces next year in a bid to fill staff shortages and reduce deforestation.​ Ministry spokesperson Sao Sopheap said yesterday that the existing 960-strong ranger workforce was insufficient to guard ...

Kampot provincial authorities have warned some 100 families who have settled on land within Bokor National Park to leave or face eviction. In a letter, the authorities say the families are living illegally on state land in Chhouk district’s Decho Aphivat commune that is part of ...

The story of the Oum Saom forestry community in Kampong Thom province is one that has been told in various forms hundreds of times in Cambodia: local residents locked in a seemingly never-ending battle against a company aiming to cut down their local forest and ...

Five men accused of illegal logging in the Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary after being caught by a joint patrol of authorities, villagers and monks should be charged with deforestation, a Preah Vihear provincial prosecutor said on Tuesday. ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district were thwarted in their attempt to inspect an ethnic Jarai community’s timber stocks on Tuesday, with some officials and observers ascribing the incident to a clash of cultures. ...

Mondulkiri’s provincial governor yesterday said officials are investigating allegations of the clearing of 200 to 300 hectares of protected forestland in Keo Seima district. ...

A Forestry Administration official said yesterday that authorities have filed a court complaint accusing a commune chief in Kampong Thom province of clearing protected state forestland for private sale. ...

Newly declared protected areas in Prey Lang forest are being illegally logged by companies belonging to a three-star general and his sister, according to Goldman Environmental Prize-winning conservationist Ouch Leng and NGOs with which he is working. Leng, along with 15 NGO officers, patrollers and ...

The governor of Kompong Speu on Tuesday ordered 10 armed soldiers to help a team of environmental officials confront a group of “anarchic” farmers clearing state forestland in the province. ...

Sixty Cambodian wildlife park rangers will be trained by South African experts next year, funded by video streaming content revenue generated by a partnership between  the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) International  and the Canadian-based  international English-language TV channel, Love Nature. WWF International will leverage scenes from ...

Half of a Kuoy ethnic community forest in Stung Treng province – for which villagers are seeking official recognition – has been logged in the past three years for private commercial gain, according to recently returned environmental activist twins Chum Hout and Chum Hour. Seven ...

The government said this week it wanted to increase by at least 30 percent the number of forest rangers working next year in Cambodia’s wildlife sanctuaries, national parks and other protected areas to guard against encroaching logging, poaching and farming. ...

A letter sent to authorities in Siem Reap province on Monday by nine park rangers accusing two senior environment officials of involvement in illegally cutting down six trees for profit was dismissed as a lie by one of the accused yesterday, who instead insisted it ...

To celebrate World Elephant Day today, the conservation group Wildlife Alliance (WA) celebrated its achievement of zero poaching of the Cardamom Rainforest’s Asian elephant population in the last decade, according to a press release on Wednesday. ...

Cambodia’s first large-scale private-sector sale of carbon credits was finalised yesterday, with conservationists predicting that it could pave the way for more public-private partnerships, making millions of dollars of funding available for local carbon-based initiatives. US entertainment giant Walt Disney Company has officially purchased $2.6 ...