Environment and natural resources

The Kratie Provincial Court on Sunday charged three villagers with illegally clearing community forest, and six more for clearing state-owned land, officials said Monday. The three people were arrested in Snoul district’s Khyoem commune and accused of clearing protected forest while the other six were arrested ...

In the latest bid to protect Mondulkiri’s ravaged forests, World Wildlife Fund is rolling out a new project designed to give locals financial incentives to help preserve Mondulkiri Protected Forest and Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary. Cultivating small-scale, community-run businesses such as resin tree tapping and beekeeping ...

A team of ethnic minority Banong villagers in Mondolkiri province detained a group of Vietnamese men on Saturday, who they suspect of illegally logging inside their community forest, and have handed them over to local police. Khut Chanra said he was among about 60 fellow Banong ...

Say Sam Al, Minister of Environment, on Thursday called for construction of plastic recycle plants in Bavet and Sihanoukville. Speaking at the meeting, the minister said that in the last 20 years Ministry of Environment as well as Cambodian government didn’t allow trash recycle in ...

Hydropower developers in southern Laos have fired back at the World Wildlife Fund after the conservation group issued two disparaging reports in as many weeks on the Don Sahong dam project. WWF released a brief on February 19 alleging that construction of the 260-megawatt damcould result ...

The offices of commune officials along the Tonle Sap basin will soon be solar-powered as part of a poverty-reduction project backed by the Asian Development Bank. Some 123 off-the-grid commune council offices in Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham provinces will be fitted ...

An existing moratorium on economic land concessions should be no impediment to pouring more cash into the Kingdom’s booming, and highly criticised, rubber trade, industry executives in the capital heard yesterday, as many current ELCs can simply be recycled to a new crop of investors. Ly ...

Cambodia on Wednesday continued distributing China-donated relief items to some 3,088 families, who are victims of last year’s flood, HIV/ AIDS patients, disabled people and orphans. Cambodian Red Cross president Bun Rany, the wife of Prime Minister Hun Sen, and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo ...

More than 20 families working on a controversial palm oil plantation in Ratanakkiri province owned by the Hoang Anh Lumphat company have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing the owners of improperly withholding one month’s pay. Lor Sophal said he and another 22 families, ...

“From my view, I don’t want to have it, but it is development, we can’t stop them,” says Srekor’s village chief, Leang Saroeurn. Cambodia’s impressive yearly GDP growth rates of 7 percent for the last decade have come, in part, through a ravenous consumption of the countries ...

About 300 angry villagers blocked a dusty road in Takeo province’s Bati district on Friday, demanding that three quarrying firms follow through on promises to pave it, a local official said Sunday. The villagers are unhappy that the quarrying firms’ trucks kick up massive amounts of ...

Sinohydro Corporation has taken over the concession to build the Stung Cheay Areng dam in Koh Kong province and is preparing for the early stages of construction, according to a company representative and government officials. Ith Prang, secretary of state at the Ministry of Mines and ...

The conservation NGO WWF today slammed developers of the Don Sahong Hydropower project for providing “flawed” and scientifically unsound impact assessments. In an analysis released today, WWF criticised the hydropower project’s Environmental Impact Assessment and Social Impact Assessment, finding both “riddled with problems such as inappropriate ...

Mirach Energy Limited disclosed Friday that its associate company CPHL (Cambodia) has submitted the final draft of Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) for Cambodia offshore Block D to the country’s Ministry of Mine and Energy’s unit Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) for approval. ...

Following a visit by representatives of the Chinese company planning to build a controversial 108-MW hydropower dam in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley, local officials and residents say they fear that construction on the project, which will require the evacuation of an estimated 1,500 villagers, ...

Authorities in Svay Rieng town are ignoring locals’ complaints over a Chinese firm that has allegedly been filling in a river in preparation to build a canal, villagers said yesterday. More than 130 families in Svay Teu commune, Svay Rieng province, have delivered petitions to provincial ...

Cambodia’s floating villages have adapted to the ebb and flow of Southeast Asia’s largest lake for generations, but modernisation and a scarcity of fish are now threatening their traditional way of life. Houses, schools, hairdressers and even dentists — entire communities bob around on the Tonle ...

Police in Kratie province on Wednesday demolished the makeshift tents of about 300 families accused of squatting on public land inside a conservation area, two weeks after they forced many of the same families out of the area. Some of the families say they have lived ...

About four tons of fish were found dead on the surface of Boeng Vien lake in Kompong Cham province this weekend, leading villagers to collect them to make emergency batches of the fermented fish paste known as prahok. Srey Santhor district governor Heng Vanny said that ...

The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...

As illegal logging con­tinues to take a toll on the country’s woodlands, civil society groups yesterday called on the government to stay true to its commitment of providing an extra two million hectares of community forest by 2029. During a two-day conference in the capital, participants ...

Three villagers in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom district appeared in court yesterday after filing a complaint against a land concessionaire for illegally bulldozing community forest. The three represented more than 160 Phnong villagers in allegations that the provincial deputy governor’s company cleared 30 hectares of community forest ...

Cambodia’s first coal-fired power plant, which is expected to fill shortages in demand by producing an additional 100 megawatts of electricity every year, commenced full-time operations yesterday. Representatives from Malaysian company Leader Universal Ltd (LU), which built the plant, joined Prime Minister Hun Sen and ...

Four Vietnamese rubber firms are responsible for destroying an estimated 1,000 hectares of community forest, including an indigenous graveyard, in Ratanakkiri’s Andong Meas district, a group of NGOs have claimed. The land dispute involving 196 families living in Talav commune dates back to 2011, Chhay Thy, ...