Environment and natural resources

Police detained nearly 100 suspected loggers from crossing into Thailand from Oddar Meanchey’s Trapaing Prasat district on Friday to illegally cut timber, Provincial Governor Sar Thavy said yesterday. The 95 would-be border crossers were arrested in several different groups and were in possession of logging equipment, ...

A container storage facility off the coast of Preah Sihanouk province that allows Cambodia to blend oil before export could hold the key to sustainable growth in the country’s nascent energy sector, according to a Danish oil and gas expert. With Chevron positioned to lead offshore ...

Two Vietnamese women have been charged with illegally storing 102 kilograms of reptiles with the intent of transporting them from Kandal’s Loeuk Dek district to Vietnam. Forestry officials along with Wildlife Rapid Rescue Teams raided the two women’s rental house last Tuesday, ...

The Pailin provincial governor has ordered a gem-mining firm to stop excavating land in a conservation area, local officials said yesterday. According to Lim Bou, chief of Boya-kha commune in Pailin town, local authorities received the order after it came to light that a firm ...

At least a dozen companies including some of Cambodia’s most prominent developers have been illegally logging and transporting rosewood since the election without any action from authorities, a pair of local NGOs alleged. In a report released yesterday, the Coalition of Cambodian Farmer Community and the ...

Jubilant conservationists expressed hope on Tuesday for the survival of the critically-endangered Giant Ibis after a nest of the bird species was discovered in a previously unknown habitat in northeastern Cambodia. Habitat loss and poaching has pushed the Giant Ibis to the edge of extinction, with ...

Ten days ago, Loun Somaly, 33, left his house to deliver a deposit to the glass workers he hired to replace a window on his rickety sheet metal-panelled house. Ly Sophal, Somaly’s tenacious three-year-old son, followed him outside, asking if he could join. But with floodwater ...

Phnom Penh municipal officials have ordered owners of eight sand-dredging companies that continued work despite a mandated moratorium to halt operations and show proof of their licences or shut down for good. On Saturday, the municipality informed the owners, whose names they declined to release, that ...

The company that paid the funeral costs of two construction workers killed when a fence collapsed on them on Saturday distanced itself yesterday from the accident, saying it doesn’t own the building site. The claim came as Meanchey District Governor Kouch Chamroeun vowed to take action ...

Two construction workers were crushed to death on Saturday in Phnom Penh when a concrete wall collapsed on them as they were digging a building’s foundation. Boeung Tompun commune police identified the victims as Touch Chorm, 17, from Kandal province’s Ponhea Leu district, and, Yung Yangthor, ...

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan and Guangxi in China) is undergoing unprecedented changes. Many of these are positive, reflecting political stabilization and economic growth following decades of poverty and conflict. But the rate and type of development is ...

Provincial authority and humanitarian NGOs are preparing for severe flooding in Kompong Thom province as floodwaters flow south from inundated Preah Vihear province along the Stung Sen River. Leng Vireak, senior manager for disaster response at NGO world Vision, said that the situation was stable ...

Flash floods have claimed nine lives and affected about 5,300 families in Cambodia since last week, a disaster control spokesman said Friday. Keo Vy, chief of the Cabinet of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said five of the dead were children. ...

Families driven from their homes in Banteay Meanchey province by flooding can now receive nearby healthcare, after a clinic opened near an evacuation area over the weekend. The makeshift clinic, set up by the provincial government, makes available medicine and care to about 100 families living ...

An Irrawaddy dolphin was found dead yesterday morning tied up in a fishing net and floating in the Mekong River in Kratie province, officials said. Khieu Kin, chief of Kratie’s provincial fishery administration, said that the 2.03-meter long, 105kg female dolphin had likely become entangled in ...

Relentless floodwater in Banteay Meanchey has killed at least seven people since late last month, when water began inundating the province, national disaster officials confirmed. Fatalities from the deluge in Banteay Meanchey include four adults and three children, National Committee for Disaster Management chief Keo Vy ...

Sand-dredging boats were active along the Mekong River in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district on Tuesday, despite the city’s municipal governor, Pa Socheatvong, having ordered a complete suspension of dredging in the city the day before. Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday put in place the temporary ...

Phnom Penh municipal governor Pa Socheatvong has ordered a complete suspension of all sand-dredging activities while the municipality investigates whether the companies are operating illegally, a spokesman said. The order came during a meeting yesterday between the governor and his subordinates, City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche ...

Police seized about 600 pieces of luxury-grade rosewood weighing about 2,000 kilograms during a raid in Oddar Meanchey province on Sunday, but are still deciding whether to arrest the owners of the property on which it was found, an official said. Bun Heng, a communal forestry ...

Flash floods have been hitting some parts of three provinces in Cambodia and have claimed seven lives so far, officials said Monday. Keo Vy, chief of the Cabinet of National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM), said northwestern Banteay Meanchey and Preah Vihear provinces as well as ...

Phnom Penh municipality and the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC) on Sunday donated money and food rations to 176 families from Borei Keila—where thousands of people have been violently evicted from their homes in recent years after the land was sold to a private company. Phnom Penh ...

On May 16, immediately after the ceiling of a shoe factory collapsed in Kompong Speu province, leaving two people dead, promises were made to prosecute those responsible for the tragedy and to conduct a nationwide in­spection of all factories. “We will have a committee investigate clearly ...

Following an investigation of alleged illegal logging by Vietnamese Company 72 in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district forests yesterday morning, provincial Forestry Administration officials claimed nothing seemed awry. Four villagers patrolling the forest at the border of Vietnam reported they had seen six Vietnamese loggers with two tractors, ...

A tropical storm that raked Vietnam for the past two days has affected five Cambodian provinces, with severe flooding and damage in three of them. Tropical storm Mangkhut descended on Northern Vietnam on Wednesday and yesterday, deluging the Mekong River and flooding areas of Banteay Meanchey, ...