Environment and natural resources

Cambodia’s Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said foreign investors with production bases in Thailand ought to consider Cambodia for future expansion because of the Kingdom’s greater resistance to floods. Speaking at Phnom Penh Honda’s 20th anniversary yesterday, the Commerce minister said that while Cambodia faces floods each ...

Three ethnic Bunong communities in Mondolkiri province may soon receive long-awaited collective property titles, which would bring to six the total number of communal land titles granted to the country’s indigenous people since the Land Law was created in 2011. And while the possible issuing of the three ...

Just two weeks after a journalist’s bludgeoned corpse was discovered in Ratanakkiri province, a human rights group yesterday identified two more recent cases of violence or intimidation against reporters in the northeastern province. The report from Adhoc said the pressure from local journalists has occurred alongside an increase ...

The Cambodian government expects U.S. oil major Chevron Corp. CVX -0.53%to begin developing the country’s first offshore oil field early next year, and hopes the nation will become a regional hot spot for oil and gas investment, a government official said Wednesday Chevron discovered commercial resources ...

Two studies have found that development on Bokor Mountain in Kampot province is threatening some of the area’s plant and animal species. The Sokimex Group has been granted development rights for the entire mountain and in May, the first of three hotels to be built ...

More than 100 families were evacuated to higher ground in Banteay Meanchey province’s Serei Saophoan City yesterday, as Prime Minister Hun Sen urged people to be vigilant in the face of continued flooding. After heavy rain last night, 100 more people from Serei Saophan City ...

The Cambodian government expects U.S. oil major Chevron Corp. CVX +0.77% to begin developing the country’s first offshore oil field early next year, and hopes the nation will become a regional hot spot for oil and gas investment, a government official said Wednesday. Cambodia has vast untapped oil and gas resources ...

An American-made army truck that was allegedly used to smuggle illegal timber through SIem Reap province, and which crashed and killed a family of three on Friday, was not a U.S. government donation, the embassy confirmed yesterday. A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy said an inspection ...

Cambodia’s economic land concession (ELC) policies are hindering development far more than helping it and beginning to erode the country’s hard-won stability, Cambodia’s special rapporteur warned yesterday. “As I have noted in relation to other sectors in Cambodia, the existence of the legal framework on paper ...

The energy exploration and production company said in a statement on Tuesday that its associate company CPHL (Cambodia) has signed a drilling environmental impact assessment (EIA) contract with two environmental consulting firms The firms, the International Environmental Management Company Limited and SAWAC Consultants For Development Company ...

At least five people were killed and some 15,510 families have been affected by flash floods that have been hitting the country’s Banteay Meanchey province since earlier this month, the latest report of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM) showed Tuesday Some 14,300 houses have ...

Rural Cambodian communities are seeing economic benefits as a result of a biomass and farming resilience project run by GERES, a French NGO. As part of the AREA project, 200 households in Kampong Chhnang province are growing 22 varieties of trees to negate the effects of ...

Serei Saophan City has become the latest area in Banteay Meanchey province to be hit by floods, with more than 300 families evacuated to higher ground yesterday, according to provincial officials. Banteay Meanchey provincial prison has also been affected by the flooding, with some parts ...

Military officials are attempting to squelch a potential lawsuit from relatives of three people killed Friday when Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers smuggling wood through Siem Reap province drove a military truck, donated by the U.S. government, into the family’s motorbike, police officials said. ...

A Malaysian company has been granted three tracts of land totaling more than 23,000 hectares for oil palm and rubber plantations in Preah Vihear province, according to documents submitted to the Malaysian stock exchange. The acquisition flout the legal maximum of concession land that a single ...

Floodwaters appeared to be receding in Banteay Meanchey province yesterday, after almost a week of heavy rains saw several communes inundated and over 4,000 families evacuated, provincial authorities said. “The situation is now under control,” said Ngor Mengchroun, governor of Poipet City-one of the worst hit ...

In an effort to boost tourist numbers, the Ministry of Tourism will host an eco-tourism seminar in the northeastern provinces to showcase its main attraction, the Irrawaddy dolphins of the Mekong River. Thong Khon, Minister of Tourism, said last week that officials attempted to hold the eco-tourism seminar ...

A family of three, including an 18-year old girl, died when the driver of a military truck carrying illegally cut wood slammed into their motorbike in Siem Reap province, officials said yesterday. The family died at the scene while the occupants of the military truck, seen ...

The director-general of Unesco on Thursday spoke out against the murder of journalist Hang Serei Odom in Ratanakkiri province, and called for the authorities to provide justice for the victim and his family. “I am deeply concerned by the killing of Hang Serei Odom,” Irina Bokova ...

More than 400 families in Banteay Meanchey province have now been evacuated from their homes due to heavy flooding in towns and villages along the Thai border, provincial officials said yesterday. About 100 families were evacuated from Poipet City – the worst-hit area – yesterday alone, ...

The United States will sign up to provide 18.5 million U.S. dollars to Cambodia to support the country’s priorities in agriculture, food security, and climate change adaptation and mitigation, according to a media release from the U.S. Embassy here on Thursday. The agreement will be signed ...

More than 3,100 families have now been evacuated from their homes as flooding spreads in Banteay Meanchey province, the deputy head of the National Committee for Disaster Managment (NCDM) said yesterday. About 3,000 of those families have been evacuated from Poipet City alone, and another 148 ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is pushing forward with the US$67 million flood reconstruction project aimed at rebuilding roads,bridges and irrigation systems hit by the devastating high waters of 2011, improving the nation’s infrastructure and providing livelihoods to people in six severely affected provinces, according ...

Four Vietnamese nationals were arrested off the coast of Preah Sihanouk province Tuesday for allegedly smuggling illegally cut wood from the neighboring province of Koh Kong, officials said yesterday. Sak Sovann, crime unit chief for the Interior Ministry’s maritime border police department, said the four men ...