Protected forest

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Months ago, Chinese engineers were posting markers for a hydropower dam opposed by villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley. This week, in marked contrast, monks draped trees in iconic saffron sashes as they blessed the very forest the dam would destroy. The saffron robes ...

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 ...

Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...

About 50 ethnic Jarai families in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district have sold their farmland and part of the forests their culture depends on to the sister of former Finance Minister Keat Chhon, rights group Adhoc said Monday. Last year, the ethnic minority Jarai in the district ...

The Prey Lang Community Network of anti-logging activists announced yesterday that late last month it had accepted the Alexander Soros Foundation’s $25,000 Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Environmental and Human Rights Activism on behalf of slain environmental crusader Chut Wutty. ...

KOH KONG – The dullness of a rainy day accentuates the lush shades of green rainforest of the Cardamom Mountains in Koh Kong province. Float down the Tatai River and you see bobbing turquoise, red and yellow canoes tied up along the banks—in their vivid ...

Anti-logging activists wrote to the United Nations yesterday to call for the monitoring of a lawsuit in which they accuse hundreds of officials in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary of illegal deforestation. The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) listed 241 officials it ...

In Cambodia, there is talk of change. Not just from Hun Sen, the prime minister, who has promised reforms after his party suffered a significant blow in recent elections, but from environmental activists and campaigners, who say there has never before been such an opportunity ...

Two monks living a remote pagoda in Kampong Speu province’s Oral district said yesterday that a shot had been fired at their living quarters last Tuesday in what they suspected was a threat motivated by their conservation efforts and participation in an opposition rally. Venerables Sam ...

Cambodia’s only U.N.-backed carbon trading scheme is still nowhere near making any money for communities and logging in the area continues to threaten the very forests supposed to generate tens of millions of dollars over the next 30 years, community representatives and officials in charge ...

The government’s latest five-year strategy calls for a complete halt to economic land concessions (ELCs) and an inquiry into those still in the pipeline. But the plan has drawn scepticism from conservationists and rights groups, who pointed out that loopholes have been liberally applied after the ...

SAN FRANCISCO — The Oddar Meanchey REDD+ (Reduced Emissions for Deforestation and Degradation) project in Cambodia is the first in the world to complete verification of emission reductions under the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) with a triple gold Climate, Community and Biodiversity (CCB) accreditation for emission ...