Environment and natural resources

It was the bloodiest battle since Waterloo. Yet the carnage wrought 150 years ago by the Italian and French troops, fighting under Napoleon III, and the forces of the Austrian Hungarian Empire, was overshadowed by its aftermath. While 30,000 had died on the battlefield, more than 40,000 ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court on Thursday charged an opposition CNRP commune chief with smuggling protected forest products after he was arrested while transporting logs to sell in Vietnam, officials said. Sev Nhang, who was elected chief of Batang commune in O’Ya­daw district for the Sam Rainsy ...

An ethnic Jarai family has been evicted from their Ratanakirri province village where they say they received death threats over a land dispute. This is the third time the family has abandoned their home after they field a lawsuit against three commune authorities in 2011, alleging ...

China on Thursday donated one million U.S. dollars to Cambodia for the relief of the flood- affected people. Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo handed over the cash donation to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Peace Palace in the Cambodian capital. Bu, on behalf of ...

National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) Vice President Nhim Vanda on Wednesday lauded the flood response work of the Cambodian Red Cross and government, at a workshop to discuss the country’s National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction where several participants focused on the lack ...

The controversial Don Sahong hydropower dam, which Laos says it will soon build just a kilometre from the Cambodian border, will not have significant effects on the Mekong River, according to an environmental impact assessment paid for by the dam’s builder. Obtained yesterday, the report – ...

Hundreds of villagers in Preav Vihear’s Kulen district cut down a palm tree on Monday and used it to block provincial officials attempting to confiscate tonnes of luxury timber from their village, their representative said yesterday. Ri Sothun, a spokesman for more than 400 families in ...

A group of endangered Asian elephants found dead in Mondulkiri province on Sunday were likely slaughtered, investigators from conservation group WWF-Cambodia have found. The organisation said in a statement yesterday an investigation into the deaths in protected Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary suggested the elephants were “slaughtered ...

The discovery of the remains of three endangered Asian elephants in Mondulkiri’s Phnom Penh Prich Wildlife Sanctuary has prompted conservation group World Wildlife Fund to launch an investigation into the animals’ deaths. Samrang Dy Vichet, director of the Wildlife Sanctuary, told the Post yesterday that villagers spotted the ...

More than 10 families in Pailin province are claiming that flood aid proffered by Cambodia Red Cross officials is being unfairly distributed by commune and village authorities. Kim San, 61, a member of one of 16 severely flood-affected families in Sala Krao district’s Stung Trang commune ...

Logging tycoon Try Pheap has come under fire from two separate reports alleging that he is using his vast network of concessions and licences to decimate protected forests across Cambodia. One of the reports, an exhaustive four-month investigation by a local NGO, also looked at the ...

Recent Mekong River flash floods have entirely damaged 113,260 hectares of rice paddies, or 4.4 percent of the total rice-planted area of 2.56 million hectares, according to an agricultural report Tuesday. “The floods had affected 369,346 hectares of rice paddies. Of the figures, 113,260 hectares ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s wife Bun Rany on Saturday used a Cambodian Red Cross flood relief event in Pailin province to denounce the opposition CNRP’s three-day rally and marches in Phnom Penh last week as part of an effort to “cheat” the people of Cambodia. Ms. ...

More than two weeks since some 850 inmates were evacuated from Banteay Meanchey prison after floodwater caused a wall to collapse, the move is illuminating just how overcrowded their destinations are, an NGO worker has said. Sharon Critoph, a prison consultant for rights group Licadho, said ...

A Stung Treng province district official on Sunday contradicted claims that logging in the area designated for the Sesan 2 dam had ceased a month ago, saying that it had only stopped last week after direct orders from the government to do so. On Thursday, Ministry ...

The government has ordered Ang & Associates Lawyer Co. Ltd., a company headed by well-known businessman Kith Meng, to cease logging in an area of Stung Treng province where a hydropower dam will be built. Sesan district governor Yeang Srey Sary said Thursday that a delegation ...

When the extent of flood damage becomes clear, the Asian Development Bank may lower its economic growth forecast for Cambodia to reflect the severity of the aftermath, a senior official with agency’s local office said yesterday. “It is possible that we will have to revise downward ...

The vice president of Cambodia’s National Committee for Disaster Management said Thursday damage from monsoon-season flooding is now estimated to have topped $1 billion. Nhim Vanda, who received $320,000 in flood-relief assistance from Japan on Wednesday, said the estimate for this year’s floods affecting more than ...

Danish beer giant Carlsberg, a partner in Cambodia’s largest brewery, Cambrew, said it is not concerned by a call to boycott its popular Angkor Beer brand over a partner company’s investment in a Laos dam. Ben Morton, vice president of Carlsberg’s international media relations and issues ...

While the political crisis in the country is still ongoing, Cambodia is now suffering another crisis due to flooding, which has had a big impact on the country’s real estate business. Kim Heang, the President of Khmer Real Estate, said the buying and selling of real ...

A colonel in the Royal Cambodian Navy yesterday denied accusations by the NGO Wildlife Alliance that naval officers opened fire on patrolling rangers on the Tatai River in Koh Kong province as they tried seizing an allegedly illegal shipment of rosewood. Colonel Tep Vuthy instead accused ...

As the flood levels recede in most of the 20 affected provinces, victims continue facing scores of recovery challenges including sanitation, food security, health and shelter concerns, as well as a lack of potable water. In its fourth report on the flood situation, released yesterday, the ...

In the latest instalment of a project designed to revamp Phnom Penh’s drainage system, officials have begun work expanding a sediment chamber near the Royal Palace to Wat Botum. Phase three of the ongoing $350 million drainage system project spearheaded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency ...

NGO Wildlife Alliance has publicly accused members of the Royal Cambodian Navy of opening fire on patrolling rangers on the Tatai river in Koh Kong’s Smach Meanchey district after they tried to seize an allegedly illegal shipment of rosewood. At about 11pm on October 10, a ...