Environment and natural resources

Employees at a Taiwanese-owned shoe factory in Kompong Speu province where two workers were killed when one of the building’s floors collapsed on Thursday have been ordered back to work today, despite ongoing concerns from labor activists about the building’s safety. While conceding that some parts ...

Thailand and Cambodia have signed four new agreements focused on bolstering trust and maintaining security. Defence Minister Sukumpol Suwanatat made the announcement after the 9th GBC meeting at Wangjuntr Golf Park in Rayong’s Wang Chan district. He said one of the four agreements concerned the spread of ...

The Japanese athletics brand ASICS said Friday that it would push its four Cambodian sub-contractors to join a programme that monitors conditions in garment and shoe factories. “We will strongly request to our sub-contractors in Cambodia to sign up to this programme,” Katsumi Funakoshi, ASICS ...

A Malaysian Court yesterday sentenced a couple to 24 years in jail for culpable homicide after their Cambodian maid starved to death while working for them in their home on the northwest coast of Penag, Agence France Press (AFP) reported. Cambodian opposition lawmaker and former ...

Labor rights activists and a government official accused the International Labor Organization’s Better Factories Cambodia program of ineffectiveness in its monitoring of factory conditions following a deadly ceiling collapse on Thursday at a shoe factory in Kompong Speu province. Moeun Tola, labor program head of the ...

Commune authorities in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have allegedly banished a local resident for persisting with a lawsuit that accuses them of selling 500 hectares of community forest to two Cambodian developers for $300,000. Romas Svang, who is a member of the ethnic Jarai minority, filed ...

The deaths of at least two Cambodian workers and injuries sustained by 10 colleagues at a shoe factory southwest of Phnom Penh once more shine a light on conditions in the global garment manufacturing industry. Thursday’s accident at the Wing Star Shoe factory in the Cambodian ...

Hundreds of families in Koh Kong province’s Khmara Phoumint City are suffering from a shortage of water, which is provided by a reservoir that dried up during the hot season, local officials said yesterday. Smach Meanchey and Dang Tong communes typically receive water from the Cham ...

Ratanakkiri provincial police on Monday arrested the chief of staff of a Vietnamese rubber concessionaire and his Cambodian translator who are believed to have burned down more than $5,000 worth of property related to a land dispute in O’Chum district, police said. Meas Pov Bora, chief ...

On May 13, we ran an interview with London-based NGO Global Witness accusing the Deutsche Bank and the International Finance Corporation of financing two Vietnamese rubber companies that are allegedly involved in land grabs in Cambodia and Laos. We asked both banks for a response ...

Koh Kong province’s mangrove forests have changed from being a source of charcoal to serving tourists who help to protect their biodiversity. The forests have now become a popular destination for Cambodian tourists. Yem Yan, Peam Krasorb commune chief in Koh Kong, said gradually visitors ...

Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisal has given the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) the green light to proceed with a plan to build coal-powered plants in Myanmar and Cambodia – providing Thailand with 10,000 megawatts of electricity. Egat has also been instructed to negotiate the ...

Royal Thai Navy ships intercepted a Cambodian fishing boat illegally smuggling 10 million baht in Siamese rosewood out of the kingdom. The HTMS Chao Phraya staffed with military, customs and forestry office personnel captured the 18-meter-long fishing vessel carrying 296 logs in its fish holds ...

Srekor village has stood on the banks of the Se San River in northeastern Cambodia for generations. In a few years it will be gone, submerged along with more than 300 square kilometres of surrounding farmland and forest. For 37-year-old rice farmer Pa Tou, the ...

Since 1998, Phnom Penh’s population has doubled to more than 2 million. High-rise buildings have popped up in the city’s center and housing developments have been hastily erected. Yet the city’s antiquated, decades-old drainage system has undergone little improvement in that time and experts say the ...

About 100 people protested Wednesday evening outside a Phnom Penh ice-making factory owned by the daughter of deputy Kompong Spue governor Tong Seng, complaining that the factory causes a bad smell and that the health of residents in Russei Keo district’s Kilometer 6 commune was ...

Two massive hydropower dams planned for the Mekong’s tributaries in Ratanakkiri province have been deemed economically viable by two feasibility studies conducted by a pair of giant Chinese conglomerates, a provincial industry, mines and energy official said yesterday. Despite the feasibility studies having been completed, ...

The Ministry of Agriculture has signed a deal with Try Pheap Import Export to give the firm the right to purchase all timber felled in economic land concessions (ELCs) in Ratanakkiri province, according to a letter sent from the Agriculture Ministry to the Forestry Administration ...

As work begins on Cambodia’s biggest dam, those advocating against its construction have warned that the region’s rush for hydropower will have a disastrous effect on millions of people who rely on the Mekong River to survive. Last month, workers began preparing an area in northeastern ...

Cambodia’s National Assembly on Tuesday adopted a draft law on fire prevention with jail term punishment for arsonists, neglected firefighters, and false information providers on fires. Ninety-four out of ninety-seven lawmakers, who were present at the session, passed the law, saying it would help maintain security, ...

A Northeastern section of the Mekong River that is home to a number of endangered species has been designated a conservation site by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. A prakas issued by Minister Chan Sarun on April 23 officially declared a 56-kilometre section of ...

Nearly a tonne of rosewood was uncovered in a raid yesterday in Kampong Speu in which the suspect successfully fled after injuring an officer, police officials said. “According to the quality assessment, I can say a rough value of that rosewood is $300,000,” he [Keo ...

Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday. The move comes after a number of ...

“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t going expecting to look out the bus window and see all the blue bags along the roads and in the fields,” said 27-year-old Christopher Convery, who is currently backpacking for the first time in Cambodia. ...