Forests and forestry

Ethnic Jarai villagers and a local rights worker yesterday discovered about 3,000 more logs that have been illegally cut by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, according to rights group Adhoc. The logs were found stockpiled in dense forest inside ...

Forestry Administration officials and police yesterday discovered a stockpile of more than 1,000 logs that ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district claim have been illegally cut by the Vietnamese owners of a rubber concession, a district official said. The 4,000-hectare concession was granted to ...

Forestry officials in Siem Reap province seized 14 cubic meters if illegally logged luxury wood being transported by a truck bearing National Police license plates, Forestry Administration officials said yesterday. ...

The Forestry Administration and military police are investigating reports of a stockpile of nearly 300 logs that ethnic Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadaw district claim have been illegally cut by the Vietnamese owners of a land concession, local officials said yesterday. Indigenous villagers living in Paknhai ...

The Vietnam Agriculture and Forestry Investment and Development Company in Hanoi is one of the two enterprises that signed a contract on importing 20,000 cubic meters of wood from Cambodia. Cambodian authorities approved the export of the volume of wood to Vietnam in 2011-2012. The ...

Seven Vietnamese men have been arrested for illegally felling trees inside two government-granted economic land concessions in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, where a Jarai ethnic minority community is fighting to preserve the forest and their ancestral lands. ...

Representatives of an ethnic Jarai community in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, along with local human rights group Adhoc, have called on two Vietnamese rubber companies to cease the clearing of forests on their ancestral land and exporting the logs to Vietnam. The companies, Day Dong Yoeun ...

Up a sweeping jungle valley in a remote corner of Cambodia, Chinese engineers and workers are raising a 100-meter- (330-foot-) high dam over the protests of villagers and activists. Only Chinese companies are willing to tame the Tatay and other rivers of Koh Kong province, ...

From a devilish-looking bat to a frog that sings like a bird, scientists have identified 126 new species in the Greater Mekong area, the WWF said Tuesday in a new report detailing discoveries in 2011. But from forest loss to the construction of major hydropower projects ...

Ethnic minority Kreung villagers filed a complaint against commune level authorities on Saturday for allegedly accepting money from a businessman to clear their ancestral land for a new rubber plantation in Ratanakkiri province, local NGOs and villagers said. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has again ordered local officials to step up their efforts to stop illegal timber being cut down and transported from Cambodia’s forest’s in response to an apparent rise in forest crimes. Thousands of cubic meters of luxury wood, as well as ...

Cambodian authorities announced yesterday they would release six Laos who were arrested in Cambodia last Thursday on suspicion of illegal logging, provided that Laos cooperates with broader border negotiations in Stung Treng province’s Siam Pang district, where the men were arrested. Svay Nhoun, a Stung Treng ...

More than 250 ethnic Jarai families living in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc yesterday, after local officials demanded that the villagers apply for private land titles to protect their property from two Vietnamese rubber companies currently clearing their land, ...

Provincial forestry administration officials in Ratanakkiri have dismissed allegations of illegal logging by community residents and chalked the deforestation up to legitimate clearing. A cursory examination of the land in question yesterday seemed to back the company’s claims, Ly Sophan, a team worker at the provincial ...

In the latest chapter of what is proving to be an arduous struggle to protect a government demarcated Community Forest in Battambang province, 36 hectares of the land have reportedly been given over to outsiders including a military official. ...

Cambodian authorities arrest a journalist who exposed the illegal smuggling of timber. Taing Try, a reporter affiliated with the Khmer Democratic Journalists’ Association, was taken into custody on Friday, police in Kratie’s Snoul district told RFA on Sunday. But Ing Savoeun, a representative from the ...

In a rare acknowledgement of deforestation concerns, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO, said the widespread clearing of forests around Angkor Wat was harming views of the historic temple complex. Sok An made the remarks in Siem Reap at a ...

Local authorities have stepped in to halt construction around a disputed land concession in Ratanakkiri province in an attempt to discover whether the company has the right to clear forest that residents claim they depend on to survive. In what appears to be a rare showing ...

The growing market for timber in China is leading to widespread logging around the world, including in Cambodia, according to a report released yesterday. The report from London-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) – entitled Appetite for Destruction: China’s trade in illegal timber – outlines ...

Though they held out hope for years that they would get communal land titles, hundreds of ethnic minority families in Mondolkiri and Ratanakkiri provinces have now opted to accept individual private land titles under Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling scheme. While individual titles offer immediate ...

Fish production in Cambodia’s great Tonle Sap Lake is on track to reach last year’s level, an official said Wednesday, despite concern from fishermen that yields are dwindling due to environmental problems. Nao Thouk, director of the Fisheries Administration under the Ministry of Agriculture, said that ...

The custodians of a community forest in Ratanakkiri have accused a company of illegally bulldozing their protected jungle. Sen Youn, a representative of the Jarai ethnic minority in O’Yadav district’s Lumchor commune, said yesterday an investigation with rights groups had uncovered that the Chea Chanrith Development ...

Forestry Administrative officials in Battambang province have again halted logging and clearing inside a community forest and are attempting to prevent student volunteers deployed by the Ministry of Land Management from demarcating land in already cleared areas, local officials said last week. ...

KOH KONG, CAMBODIA — A Thai force dubbed the “Rambo Army” couldn’t stop the gangs, armed with battlefield weaponry, as they scoured the forests. Neither could a brave activist, gunned down when he came to investigate. Nor, apparently, can governments across Southeast Asia. The root of the ...