Forests and forestry

The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...

As illegal logging con­tinues to take a toll on the country’s woodlands, civil society groups yesterday called on the government to stay true to its commitment of providing an extra two million hectares of community forest by 2029. During a two-day conference in the capital, participants ...

Three villagers in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district appeared in court yesterday after filing a complaint against a land concessionaire for illegally bulldozing community forest. The three represented more than 160 Phnong villagers in allegations that the provincial deputy governor’s company cleared 30 hectares of community forest ...

Four Vietnamese rubber firms are responsible for destroying an estimated 1,000 hectares of community forest, including an indigenous graveyard, in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district, a group of NGOs have claimed. The land dispute involving 196 families living in Talav commune dates back to 2011, Chhay Thy, ...

The Lower Sesan II dam project is a microcosm of the carving up of Cambodia. In one of the world’s most diverse river ecosystems, the ground burns. Whole forests are felled with scant regard for the law, while the project is backed by the country’s ...

Construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project in southern Laos is likely to decimate an already dwindling population of critically endangered Mekong dolphins, according to a World Wildlife Fund science brief published today. About 85 dolphins inhabit a deep-water pool restricted to a stretch of the ...

The Forestry Administration in Kampot province on Tuesday confiscated about 2 cubic meters of illegal timber from a truck in Toek Chhou district’s Stung Keo commune, officials said. The bust is at least the third in a week, with forestry officials confiscating 200 pieces of illegal ...

In the latest case involving illegal logging in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district, two indigenous communities filed a lawsuit against three unidentified illegal loggers after confiscating a truck laden with luxury wood on Saturday, a rights monitor and villagers said yesterday. About 50 villagers turned over the ...

The World Bank says it will investigate reports from indigenous groups in Cambodia that a company funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation is involved in deforestation and land grabs. The bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman, or CAO, will first examine the credibility of ...

Villagers along the Mekong river found a dead freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin floating with the current yesterday near Prek Chik village in Kratie province’s Prek Presap district. Fishery officials said the male dolphin weighs about 100kg. Sean Kin, a fishery official in Kratie province, said his team took ...

The Forestry Administration in Preah Vihear province on Saturday raided a remote cabin in Choam Ksan district where they found 200 pieces of illegally felled luxury wood, police said Sunday. The 15 cubic meters of wood uncovered included the Thnong, Beng and Neang Noun varieties, and ...

A brigadier general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) whose home and rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province were raided by police last week claimed Sunday that the authorities had apologized to him after he threatened them with a lawsuit. Police had raided Brigadier General Chhit ...

Mondulkiri villagers seized seven chainsaws on Tuesday from illegal loggers claiming to be selling timber to logging tycoon Try Pheap’s company. A group of ethnic Pnong villagers came across the three illegal loggers during a patrol of their community forest on Tuesday, according to Bil Vanthy, ...

NGOS have accused logging tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import-Export Company – which had a licence to clear forest during the construction of the Stung Atai hydropower dam in Pursat – of continuing to log the area despite the dam being finished. Ouch Leng, director of the ...

About 200 families from Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district filed a complaint on Sunday against a Vietnamese-owned company alleged to have razed more than 3,500 hectares of community forest since 2010, villagers and a rights group said yesterday. A rubber concessionaire identified as Sovan Reachsey has been ...

More than a dozen ethnic minority communities from Cambodia’s northeast filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Monday, accusing it of breaking its own safeguard policies by investing in rubber plantations they say are stealing their land and illegally logging their forests. The ...

Cambodia’s largest hydropower plant to date, the Stung Russey Chrum, is operational. The 338-megawatt dam, located in Koh Kong’s Mondul Sima district forest, produced and transmitted electricity to Phnom Penh last month, according to its developer, China Huadian Corporation. “It is the biggest and best dam we ...

A brigadier general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) whose home and rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province were raided by police over the weekend said Monday that he was not responsible for the dozens of pieces of illegal luxury wood confiscated during two separate ...

Teng Khorn’s living room is under a tree, his bedroom in a boat hauled up on a slipway for caulking beside the mangroves that lead to his source of income: the sea. His choice of abode is also his act of defiance against the monolithic Chinese ...

In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. “I never thought I would get out. There was a ...

Some of the hundreds of families losing land and community forest to Vietnamese-owned rubber plantations in Cambodia’s northeast will this week file a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) over the investment it has made in the plantations’ parent company. Eang Vuthy, executive director of ...

A commune police officer has been summonsed to appear at Ratanakkiri’s provincial court on Friday after 10 villagers filed lawsuits against him in September for his alleged involvement in illegal logging in a community forest and for threatening them with a rifle, villagers and the ...

Among the exotic wildlife that prowls Cambodia’s forests are large furry creatures that may be far more familiar to European and North American visitors than the ever-dwindling populations of large cats and beastly elephants. The Kingdom’s bears climb trees and devour honey just like their ...

The government has granted 322 hectares of state-owned teak forest in the newly formed Tbong Khmum province to the Interior Ministry so that the land can be used to build a new provincial capital, the Interior Ministry said Wednesday. “The government has decided to use more ...