Environment and natural resources

A tiny species of frog that may be found only in Virachey National Park in Cambodia’s remote northeast was yesterday officially classified as endangered by a major international conservation group. ...

The logger’s teeth were smashed with the butt of a rifle and his friend fatally shot by a Thai paramilitary force formed to provide support to the Khmer Rouge. Chakrya*, 24, had ventured across the Dangrek Mountains in Cambodia’s far north to log Siamese rosewood, a ...

Hun Sen’s Cambodia has been shaped by the collection of illegal timber dollars, profiting a politically connected elite and in turn ensuring the ruling party’s grip on the state apparatus, a leading Australian researcher has said. Sarah Milne, a research fellow at the Australian National University, ...

Members of local conservation group the Forest Protection Community announced plans last week to use their own staff members to patrol an area of forest in Anlong Veng that could be decimated by illegal loggers within months. ...

The agriculture industry has lost its luster among industrial manufacturers and service providers. Tycoons are quietly withdrawing money from agriculture projects, just several years after pouring big money into the sector. Just a few years ago, Do Van Minh, Gemadept’s CEO, said that growing rubber ...

Military police in Ratanakkiri province working with the NGO Wildlife Alliance confiscated 40 kg of bushmeat from two vendors at a Banlung City market Thursday morning but let the women go with a warning. ...

The European Union ambassador on Wednesday called on the Cambodian government to help combat climate change, foremost by reducing red tape for communities who want to form groups to protect what remains of the country’s forests. ...

It is a simple solution to a wildlife water shortage. During the annual dry season [November through April] in a protected forest in eastern Cambodia, wildlife scientists hired local workers with shovels to dig out accumulated sediment from six remote and dried-up waterholes. The result: During ...

Rangers in eastern Cambodia’s Seima Protected Forest have reported seizing 32 animals in three separate busts over the past week, including more than a dozen endangered tortoises. ...

The European Union in Cambodia held a panel discussion about climate change on Wednesday in coordination with a United Nations-led global climate change conference to be held in Paris at the end of the year. ...

A Cambodian man who had been illegally logging rosewood across the border in Thailand was shot dead by Thai soldiers on Friday, a village chief in Oddar Meanchey province said Tuesday. ...

A group of activists in northwestern Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province said Tuesday that their forest is under threat from illegal loggers in neighboring provinces and could be completely cleared within months if authorities do not step in to deal with the problem. ...

Cambodia is looking at a delayed onset of the rainy season, with experts and government officials having raised concerns of a prolonged dry season affecting agricultural production, as the Pacific weather pattern El Niño threatens to bring drought-like conditions. Ngin Chhay, director of the Rice Department ...

Nearly 20 cubic metres of timber were seized by local authorities in Stung Treng’s Thala Barivat district yesterday, despite alleged interference by a military police officer from Preah Vihear province, police said. ...

Cambodia has called for ASEAN countries to support a proposal from Thailand that would recognise wildlife and forest crimes as a new priority in the Southeast Asian association’s transnational crime enforcement program. At a meeting of senior law enforcement officials from ASEAN countries held this week ...

A group of indigenous villagers in northeastern Cambodia’s Stung Treng province called on local forestry officials Wednesday to crackdown on illegal saw mills and to provide them with protection after they received death threats from unsanctioned loggers of luxury timber. ...

In perhaps the most comprehensive review to date of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 land titling project, the NGO Forum on Tuesday said the campaign has yielded major benefits, but not without some serious costs—particularly for the country’s beleaguered indigenous communities. ...

As climate change increases the severity of droughts and floods across the Kingdom, a push is being made for farmers to adopt more resistant rice varieties. The Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute launched a USAID-financed project in Phnom Penh yesterday in a bid to “accelerate the ...

Activists in Prey Lang forest yesterday seized chainsaws and illegally felled timber from a group of loggers as they continued to “ordain” the woodland’s largest trees in an effort to stop further offences. ...

The National Assembly of Cambodia on Monday adopted a draft law on disaster management, aiming to effectively control any natural or man-made disasters through preparedness, mitigation, and timely response. ...

The Ministry of Defense plans to work with a Singaporean company to plant six million trees in Cambodia that will eventually be turned into high-end perfume, medicine, tea, incense and furniture, an official said Thursday. One Plantation Holdings signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) last month ...

More and more wood is being smuggled across the southwestern border. Smuggling prevention agencies said they had discovered many consignments of wood illegally imported from Laos and Cambodia across the border. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has dismissed calls from opposition lawmakers to ensure that Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley is turned into an eco-tour destination, saying in a letter that he had already twice addressed the future of the valley. ...

Forestry officials in the provinces of Kratie and Stung Treng confiscated more than 40 pieces of horns and bones, along with over 40 live animals, in raids against wildlife smugglers on Tuesday with the help of the NGO Wildlife Alliance. ...