Protected areas

Making a dramatic arrival by helicopter at the Sofitel Hotel in Phnom Penh after a flyover of Prey Lang forest, Environment Minister Say Sam Al and US Ambassador to Cambodia William Heidt discussed a plan to make the Kingdom’s largest forest a protected area. ...

About 130 hectares of protected wetlands in three villages in Kampong Chhnang province’s Boribor district were consumed in forest fires last week, according to a police report issued by the Interior Ministry. ...

A leading Indian conservationist and tiger expert is warning that a multimillion-dollar scheme to reintroduce the big cat to Cambodia will be a “tragic failure” that could cost lives, and that its advocates will come to rue the attempt.    ...

A controversial proposed animal swap that would have seen elephants Kiri and Seila sent from the notorious Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot to a zoo in Japan in exchange for other exotic species has been officially called off, new documents show.   ...

Eight tigers will be released into the Cambodian wild in an unprecedented plan projected to cost between $20 and $50 million, the Ministry of Agriculture and WWF-Cambodia announced at an event in Phnom Penh on Wednesday.   ...

Sleeping in a hammock strung between two tall trees, deep inside Prey Lang forest, environmental activist Phorn Sopheak was startled awake at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when her parked motorbike toppled over onto her body. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has agreed to legally protect nearly 1 million hectares of the Kingdom’s forest land, including the Prey Lang forest. Speaking during the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport’s annual meeting at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Mr. Hun Sen said he ...

The Ministry of Environment has proposed the government establish nearly one million hectares of newly protected forest, an area that will include the Prey Lang forest, according to ministry spokesman Sao Sopheap.​ ...

A member of the Prey Lang Community Network (PLCN) in Kratie province was seriously injured after she was attacked by an unknown assailant while sleeping in a hammock on Sunday night near Boeung Cha village. ...

The Ministry of Environment is encouraging people living in or around protected areas to start feeding and domesticating wild animals, and to abstain from eating them, with similar strategies in animal conservation being attempted in communities in Preah Vihear province. ...

Government rangers, paid to protect the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary, allow loggers to process and transport illegally felled timber in exchange for bribes, an NGO alleged yesterday after conducting an undercover operation in the protected forest. ...

Authorities have seized more than 160 kilograms of illegal wildlife meat and several live animals during separate raids in Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces over the past week. ...

The Prey Lang Community Network has called on the government to include the protection of the sprawling Prey Lang forest in the remit of the recently established committee to crack down on illegal logging. ...

Steng Treng’s forestry protection communities called on the government and relevant institutions to investigate the irregularities of duty of the local authorities and Stung Treng provincial forestry officers who did not pay attention to local forest conservation, also enable logger to encroach land arbitrarily. ...

Water bird numbers are making a big comeback in the Prek Toal conservation area on the Tonle Sap lake in Battambang province, the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a report released on Saturday. ...

A herd of at least 12 endangered Asian elephants, including young, has been caught grazing and roaming around the Cambodia’s largest protected forest in a remarkable camera trap footage, according to the Conservation International’s statement seen on Saturday.   ...

Local authorities say they are struggling to protect the Mondulkiri Protected Forest and the Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary from being logged by villagers in the province’s Koh Nhek and Pech Chreada districts, while villagers accuse authorities of colluding with certain logging groups. ...

Officials in Kampong Speu province have accused a man of illegally clearing dozens of hectares of land in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary to grow sugarcane. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has called environmental activists objecting to the construction of hydropower dams in Cambodia “extreme” insisting that such developments would benefit millions of people.His remarks came on Wednesday during the inauguration of a dam located on the Tatay river in Koh Kong ...

A local investment company, Norkor Korkthlok company, owned by Oknha Sieng Nam, recently decided to stop investment on Preah Chey Varaman-Norodom National Park in Kulen Mountain and voluntarily return back to the government. ...

The Apsara Authority in cooperation with the Preah Vihear provincial authorities will establish a joint-committee to combat illegal logging and land encroachments within conservation site in Koh Ker temple. ...

After nearly two months tied to a tree near the Lumphat district office in Ratanakkiri province, a female elephant has finally been rehoused by the Mondolkiri Project Elephant Sanctuary, which purchased the animal in early October, according to the sanctuary’s founder. ...

The government’s Apsara authority will join forces with the Preah Vihear administration to establish a joint committee to prevent illegal logging and to manage state land in the protected areas around Koh Ker, officials said yesterday. ...

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. ...