Forests and forestry

The case of journalist Hang Serei Odom, who was found hacked to death and stuffed into the trunk of his Toyota Camry in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Chum district on September 11 last year, will be heard by the Appeal Court in Phnom Penh, a senior court ...

For the ethnic Bunong people in this northeastern province, animals are an integral part of the local economy. Pigs, chickens and water buffaloes offer a variety of sustenance and labour. But it’s the elephants that bring foreigners – and foreigners bring cash. “When I get tours, the ...

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 ...

A community forest patrol of locals yesterday confiscated a large haul of illegally logged luxury wood that was being transported to the Vietnamese border in Mondolkiri province, local officials said. Commune police chief Pech Sotheary said the case has been referred to provincial forestry administration ...

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 ...

In the months leading up to Cambodia’s national election on July 28, authorities in the Angkor Archaeological Park allowed dozens of land owners to build new houses and develop plots of land inside highly protected areas of the world heritage site. Villagers interviewed last week said ...

The Siem Reap Provincial Court charged three men Wednesday with illegally logging luxury rosewood inside the Angkor Archaeological Park, a Unesco world heritage site, officials said. Provincial prosecutor Heng Pheng said the suspects had been identified as Sun Phearak, 20, Phay Sophea, 18, and Phin Ron, ...

A conservation group yesterday accused a military commander in Kampong Speu of smuggling two tonnes of illegally cut rosewood to Vietnam on Monday night. Chea Hean, director of the Natural Resources and Wildlife Preservation Organisation, said the commander had cut the timber in the protected Oral ...

KAMPONG SPEU PROVINCE— Three years ago, Pao had a farm and a charcoal stove near a stream in a community called Omlaing in western Cambodia. The farm gave her rice, charcoal sales gave her extra income and the nearby forest provided edible and medicinal plants. Pao ...

Four unidentified men were arrested yesterday for allegedly killing an endangered and pregnant gaur – a species of wild bovine – in a protected wildlife reserve in Mondulkiri province, provincial officials said. After villagers discovered the carcass on Wednesday, provincial authorities along with conservationists in charge ...

Civil society groups yesterday hit back at the government after a Ministry of Interior statement released on Wednesday warned NGOs that they would be breaking ministry protocols on political neutrality by “directly or indirectly” supporting an unnamed political party or its protests. The Cambodia National Rescue ...

Early on Monday morning, at about 1am, two trucks carrying roughly 10 cubic metres of illegally felled timber were bouncing down the road between Oddar Meanchey and Siem Reap. Police stopped the trucks – one of which bore military plates – and seized the haul, but ...

Jarai ethnic minority villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district are demanding compensation from a villager they claim illegally cleared a sizeable portion of their community forest this year. The villagers seized two carts transporting rosewood – and the four buffaloes pulling them – out of the forest ...

Diminishing populations of hoofed animals in Southeast Asia have hit Cambodia hard, with numbers of one of the Kingdom’s indigenous species dropping by 90 per cent. The current banteng census shows an 80 per cent drop in the world’s banteng population and a 90 per ...

A group of 12 ethnic minority villagers in Ratanakkiri province have filed a complaint with the provincial court over what they claim is collusion between other villagers and local authorities to illegally log luxury timber from 193 hectares of land inside a community forest. The Prov ...

Police and forestry officials in Siem Reap province discovered more than 10 cubic metres of illegally logged second-grade timber yesterday in two trucks, one of them bearing a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces licence plate. No arrests were made. Police were now looking into the origins ...

Rights group Adhoc will take a complaint filed against a commune police officer accused of colluding with illegal loggers in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district to the provincial court today. The complaint, which villagers in Lbaing II commune filed with Adhoc on Friday, alleges that commune police officer ...

One year ago today, Hang Serei Odom, a journalist in Ratanakkiri province, received a fateful phone call. After telling his wife he was going to meet a military police officer, he bid her goodnight. He left his house in Banlung City at about 7 p.m. ...