Environment and natural resources

An excavator operator clearing a patch of land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district had a surprise run-in on Friday with six pythons, which broke cover as his machine moved onto their wetland habitat, according to a local official. ...

A group of university students from Phnom Penh opposed to a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province entered the project’s construction site on Sunday for a 10-day study aiming to highlight the area’s alternative potential for ecotourism. ...

After Thai soldiers last week shot and killed three Cambodians who entered Thailand to log luxury-grade rosewood, a district governor in Preah Vihear province thought it would be an appropriate time to warn locals of the dangers of crossing the border. ...

More than a dozen opposition party officials have accused Thailand of encouraging extrajudicial killings of Cambodians along the border. In a strongly worded letter sent to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, the Cambodia National Rescue Party MPs asked for an independent investigation into an ...

More than a dozen opposition party officials have accused Thailand of encouraging extrajudicial killings of Cambodians along the border. In a strongly worded letter sent to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, the Cambodia National Rescue Party MPs asked for an independent investigation into an ...

Thai soldiers shot and killed three Cambodian loggers and seriously injured a fourth last week after the group illegally crossed into Thailand from Preah Vihear province in search of valuable timber, officials said Wednesday. ...

The government’s apparent unwillingness to take seriously evidence of continued large-scale illegal logging orchestrated by the Try Pheap Group is “disappointing”, Global Witness said yesterday. A report released last week by the UK-based group titled The Cost of Luxury detailed evidence, collected during an eight-month covert ...

Four Vietnamese nationals were charged on Tuesday with illegally collecting first-grade logs from the forest after they were arrested while transporting the wood from Mondolkiri province’s border-hugging Koh Nhek district to Vietnam. ...

Minister of Agriculture Ouk Rabun yesterday dismissed allegations of large-scale illegal timber smuggling by the Try Pheap Group published in a report by UK-based corruption monitor Global Witness last week. Global Witness’s report, The Cost of Luxury, identified Pheap, a prominent tycoon and former adviser to ...

A recently elected village chief in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, who was forced into another election by his rival, was arrested on Wednesday during the second poll. ...

In a new report, U.K. environmental rights group Global Witness places Cambodian timber magnate Try Pheap at the heart of a vast illegal logging operation driving the country’s rarest tree species to the brink of extinction with the collusion of government and military officials. “The Cost ...

Korea Forest Service (KFS) has been working to promote overseas partnership with Southeast Asia countries by aiming to expand afforestation by 1 million hectares by 2050 from 314,000 hectares in 2013. It established relations with Indonesia to collaborate in planting trees on 700,000 hectares, and ...

Representatives of communities across the country who have had their lives upturned by development projects yesterday called on the government to rescind the economic land concessions at the centre of their disputes. ...

Representatives of communities across the country who have had their lives upturned by development projects yesterday called on the government to rescind the economic land concessions at the centre of their disputes. ...

As Vietnam and Laos negotiate to enter a European Union trade agreement aimed at improving forestry governance, the EU – one of the world’s top timber importers – is urging Cambodia to join the scheme. ...

More than 100 cubic metres of luxury timber were found inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary near a Vietnamese-owned economic land concession on Saturday in Ratanakkiri province, according to Adhoc and a local resident, who suspect the timber was taken out of the protected area. Nearly ...

A recently approved road project leading to the border with Vietnam in Mondulkiri would do irreversible damage to the province’s protected forest and threaten future attempts to reintroduce tigers to the Kingdom, according to the World Wildlife Fund. ...

Environment Ministry officials on Thursday found a cache of more than 400 pieces of illegally logged first-grade wood in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which the ministry oversees, and suspect officers from a nearby military police base of being involved. Thin Ngoal, the sanctuary’s deputy director, ...

Wildlife experts fear for the health of a migratory vulture from Central Asia after it was captured by villagers in Kampot province’s Teuk Chhou district and taken to a notorious private zoo. The Himalayan vulture, also known as the Himalayan griffon, which rarely visits Cambodia, was ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries saw at least 2,400 cases of forest- and wildlife-related crimes in 2014, of which almost 1,800 were forwarded to the courts, though fewer than 10 people were sentenced in relation to the crimes, ministry figures say. ...

Cambodia is launching its first university-level climate change curriculum, according to USAID, which is supporting the pilot program.​ ...

Many visit Siem Reap province’s Angkorian-era temples for the views and the atmosphere, but the Apsara Authority wants to find out if that atmosphere is toxic. ...

The government seized more than 7,000 cubic meters of illegally logged wood last year, according to a report released by the Ministry of Agriculture on Thursday. ...

Newly released maps using U.S. satellite data show that Cambodia continued to suffer major deforestation in 2013, much of it in nominally protected forests and wildlife sanctuaries. In November 2013, the University of Maryland released what it said was the first study to combine a consistent ...