Environment and natural resources
Cambodia could tap up to 10,000 MW from hydroelectric dams
Cambodia has great potential in hydropower development and the country could build and tap up to 10,000 megawatts from hydropower dams, said an energy official on Thursday. “At the present, about 10 percent of the hydropower potential is under construction,” Heng Kunleang, chief of the energy ...
Kampong Cham residents say casinos pollute fishing grounds
Residents of Tropang Thlong village in Ponhea Krek district say casinos near the border with Vietnam are polluting fishing grounds. ...
Kep first province to wrap land-titling scheme
Seven months after Prime Minister Hun Sen unveiled an ambitious plan to demarcate 1.8 million hectares of state land and formally acknowledge those who live on it, the completion of the first – albeit the smallest – of eight affected provinces has wrapped up. Marking the ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/National/kep-first-province-to-wrap-land-titling-scheme.html
Hun Sen Appeals for Kep's Vines to Be Tamed
Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed yesterday for developers and landowners in Kep City to build fences around their neglected properties to prevent vines from creeping onto the street of the coastal resort. Since much of the land in Kep City is owned by investors who live ...
Residents seek compensation as homes fall into Tonle Sap
Nineteen families from Svay Pak commune in Russey Keo district protested for a second day Wednesday after their homes fell into the Tonle Sap River. Twenty-four houses along the river have been affected, they said. Although five have already left, the other 19 refuse to accept ...
Community forest woes
In the latest chapter of what is proving to be an arduous struggle to protect a government demarcated Community Forest in Battambang province, 36 hectares of the land have reportedly been given over to outsiders including a military official. ...
David Boyle
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012121060181/National-news/community-forest-woes.html
Logging Reporter Arrested
Cambodian authorities arrest a journalist who exposed the illegal smuggling of timber. Taing Try, a reporter affiliated with the Khmer Democratic Journalists’ Association, was taken into custody on Friday, police in Kratie’s Snoul district told RFA on Sunday. But Ing Savoeun, a representative from the ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/reporter-12102012174729.html
Angkor Wat site in danger: Deputy PM
In a rare acknowledgement of deforestation concerns, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO, said the widespread clearing of forests around Angkor Wat was harming views of the historic temple complex. Sok An made the remarks in Siem Reap at a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012120760153/National-news/temple-site-in-danger-dpm.html
Mixed results for oil firm's search off coast
The first well drilled by a major Chinese company looking for oil and gas in Cambodian waters has been completed, though hydrocarbons in the firms offshore block are proving elusive, an official at the Cambodian National Petroleum Authority (CNPA) has said. ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/mixed-results-for-oil-firms-search-off-coast-6489/
Cambodia's mangroves under threat
Cambodia’s vital southern mangrove systems are choking as rising sea levels, agitated by climate change, inundate them with sand, while sand dredging sucks them dry of sediment, a study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has found. Stressed by a host of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012120560112/National-news/mangroves-threatened.html
Government Silent on Atai Dam Damage
With three workers still missing after a major breach at a chinese built hydropower dam in Pursat province on Saturday, the Government’s investigation into what went wrong and why appears to be moving slowly. A large set ion of a concrete tunnel at Stung Atai ...
One Safe, Three Missing in Hydrodam Accident
PHNOM PENH – Authorities are searching for three missing construction workers at a Chinese hydroelectric dam in Pursat province, after pipes burst there on Saturday, causing a flash flood. One man, who had been fishing nearby and was thought missing, has been found “safe and alive” ...
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/one-safe-three-missing-in-hydrodam-accident/1557685.html
Villagers refuse $500 compensation for damaged houses
Local authorities in the capital’s Russey Keo district had offered residents living along the banks of the Tonle Sap $500 compensation in the wake of sand dredging that began a week ago and has already caused structural damage to their homes, villagers told the Post ...
Landmines kill 41 Cambodians, injuring 121 others in 10 months
Cambodia on Monday recorded 162 landmine casualties in the first ten months of this year, down 4 percent from 155 casualties at the same period last year, showed a report from the Cambodian Mine and Explosive Remnants of War Victim Information System. The report said that ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2012-12/03/c_132016467.htm
Jarai ethnic minority win temporary victory over forest
Local authorities have stepped in to halt construction around a disputed land concession in Ratanakkiri province in an attempt to discover whether the company has the right to clear forest that residents claim they depend on to survive. In what appears to be a rare showing ...
Four feared dead in Cambodia dam accident
According to Veal Veng district police chief Theang Leng, the incident occurred on Saturday afternoon, apparently after heavy water pressure caused part of the Stung Atay dam’s reservoir to collapse. “Four people are missing. We fear they have drowned but this is not sure yet,” he ...
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-03/an-cambodia-dam/4403764
Power projects aim to generate 4,000 megawatts by 2020
The government is carrying out 18 power projects to generate more than 4,000 megawatts of electricity by 2020, according to the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy. In its annual report, the ministry says Cambodia consumed 2,788 million kilowatt/hours in 2011. Thailand and Vietnam supplied 1,765 ...
Cambodia, Among Others, Feeding China's Demand for Timber
The growing market for timber in China is leading to widespread logging around the world, including in Cambodia, according to a report released yesterday. The report from London-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) – entitled Appetite for Destruction: China’s trade in illegal timber – outlines ...
Minorities Choosing Private Over Communal
Though they held out hope for years that they would get communal land titles, hundreds of ethnic minority families in Mondolkiri and Ratanakkiri provinces have now opted to accept individual private land titles under Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling scheme. While individual titles offer immediate ...
Study reveals extent of Mekong dam food security threat
The planned construction of hydropowered dams on the Mekong River in South-East Asia could jeopardise livelihoods, water access and food security for 60 million people, across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, according to a study. The study reports that dams will block fish migration routes and ...
Concern Over Tonle Sap Catch
Fish production in Cambodia’s great Tonle Sap Lake is on track to reach last year’s level, an official said Wednesday, despite concern from fishermen that yields are dwindling due to environmental problems. Nao Thouk, director of the Fisheries Administration under the Ministry of Agriculture, said that ...
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/tonle-sap-11282012191709.html
Electricity Vietnam No Longer Involved in Lower Sesan 2 Dam
Electricity Vietnam International (EVNI), a subsidiary of Vietnam’s state-owned electricity giant EVN, is no longer involved in the Lower Sesan 2 dam, a Vietnamese Embassy official confirmed yesterday. Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group and China’s Hydrolancang International Energy Co. Ltd. on Monday signed an agreement in Phnom ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/electricity-vietnam-no-longer-involved-in-lower-sesan-2-dam-6363/
Chinese sign deal on dam, villagers fear flooding
The massive and highly controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam project took a major step forward yesterday with the inking of government power purchase agreements and an investment deal between Royal Group and a Chinese company. But details about the contracts, their implementation or the fate of ...
Jarai ethnic minority claim forest razed
The custodians of a community forest in Ratanakkiri have accused a company of illegally bulldozing their protected jungle. Sen Youn, a representative of the Jarai ethnic minority in O’Yadav district’s Lumchor commune, said yesterday an investigation with rights groups had uncovered that the Chea Chanrith Development ...