Environment and natural resources

Authorities in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Creada district on Wednesday set up roadblocks to prevent indigenous minority villagers from traveling to Sen Monorom City to attend a demonstration calling for an end to illegal logging, villagers and authorities said. Some 300 indigenous villagers had planned to attend ...

Construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam will begin early next month, residents and authorities said after a meeting in Stung Treng province on Monday. Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem for the first time gave a time frame for the construction of the dam ...

Cambodia’s first verified carbon credit program is up and running in the remote province of Oddar Meanchey. But experts say there are limited carbon credit buyers, and illegal deforestation remains a major threat to the stability to the project. ...

A newly demarcated wildlife and forest protection zone designed to safeguard Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, along with a number of other endangered species, has been approved after more than 10 years in the making. A government sub-decree approving a protection zone spanning 66,932 hectares ...

Ethnic Phnong villagers in Mondulkiri province’s Sen Monorom district will file a complaint with rights group Adhoc today against three men who allegedly illegally logged 10 cubic metres of timber from their forest. ...

Cambodian soldiers are continuing to cut into community forests in Oddar Meanchey province that are meant to anchor what is intended to be the country’s first forest-based carbon credit trading scheme, local villagers and NGOs said Wednesday. ...

The chairman of the Chinese company whose subsidiary will construct the Lower Sesan 2 dam met with Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday to inform him that the dam would be completed in three years’ time, Mr. Hun Sen’s assistant said. Zhang Tingke, vice president of ...

Phnom Penh Municipality has warned the public to expect prolonged traffic disturbances around O’Russei market in Prampi Makara district after construction began in the area Monday as part of the ongoing Japan-funded drainage project, a statement from City Hall said. The public has been asked for ...

More than 200 families filed a complaint with the Preah Vihear provincial court yesterday against two employees of logging tycoon Try Pheap who allegedly cleared 15 hectares of community forest late last year before being stopped by villagers. Huon Kino, 39, a representative of the 203 ...

Four of six men arrested on Thursday for allegedly clearing more than three hectares of protected forest within Mondulkiri’s Seima Biodiversity Conservation Area were charged on Saturday, court officials and rights monitors said yesterday. Sou Sovichea, provincial deputy prosecutor, confirmed yesterday that the four suspects charged ...

Cambodia is changing fast. Over the past decade, the capital city, Phnom Penh has expanded exponentially: its bodies of water have been filled in and green spaces diminished. Rural to urban migration has changed the shape of the countryside. Great shifts are under way and ...

Authorities in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces on Thursday said that they were investigating an unusual change of color in the Mekong River to a muddy, dark brown that was unnatural for this time of the year and was worrying residents. Since the beginning of this ...

A Japanese national is being accused by a Preah Sihanouk farmer of shooting him over a logging dispute in Kampong Seila district, the alleged victim and a rights monitor said yesterday. Kanha Phan, 32, is alleging that Peter Ly, 39, shot him in the waist after ...

Villagers living in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district are demanding hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation for the loss of thousands of protected resin trees, alleging that a land concessionaire company has been illegally razing community forest since 2012.​ ...

Ten land activists are set to be questioned today by Preah Vihear provincial court over their involvement in halting the drilling of a well in a community forest in November last year, rights monitors said yesterday. Lor Chhan, provincial coordinator for rights group Adhoc, told the Post the ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Tuesday that the Southeast Asian nation has no ambition to develop a nuclear power plant, but wants to use nuclear technologies in agriculture, health, and animal breeds. The prime minister made the remarks during a meeting with Yukiya Amano, director ...

The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court laid fresh charges of money laundering on the detained chairman of an embattled British investment firm on Friday, the same day that a provincial official was arrested in relation to fraud charges the businessman was already facing, a court official ...

More than 50 villagers who collect bamboo and rattan in the forests of Kampot’s Teuk Chhou district called on Kampot provincial hall for intervention yesterday after their trucks were banned from the area. ...

Stung Treng province police are searching for suspects after authorities found more than six tonnes of luxury-grade timber buried near a remote home in Siem Pang district last week. ...

Three rights monitors filed an attempted murder lawsuit against a Mondulkiri land concessionaire employee on Wednesday, after he violently denied them access to an area under investigation for forest crimes, Adhoc said yesterday. The stand-off comes on the heels of a second potentially violent confrontation ...

More than 100 villagers from eight ethnic communities in Mondulkiri province on Friday symbolically burned two chainsaws allegedly used to illegally log community forest before delivering four others they had confiscated to the provincial forestry administration, participants and Adhoc said yesterday. ...

The number of people shot dead while illegally logging luxury wood in Thailand decreased significantly in 2013 compared to 2012, although a Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) official provided numbers much lower than provincial police officials, whose number also differed from human rights groups. Brigadier General ...

Seven police officers and an NGO staffer in Mondulkiri province escaped a potentially violent confrontation with illegal loggers on Wednesday, while a soldier who was accompanying the group claimed he received death threats from military police connected to the logging operation. Khleuv Krak, 40, a Royal ...

Villagers patrolling a protected community forest in Mondulkiri province yesterday morning found more than 100 logs of luxury timber, believed to be headed for Vietnam. ...