Environment and natural resources

Sitting at his outpost overlooking the Mekong River, Deab Kuy remembers an incident some years ago when fishermen threatened to attack him if they were stopped from casting their nets around the river’s sandy islets here in Sambok commune. The outpost, little more than a wooden house on ...

Residents of Kratie province had an education in conservation yesterday as the government and outside partners reiterated a September sub-decree banning gill nets on a sizable stretch of the Mekong in a bid to protect the badly endangered Mekong River dolphin. Touch Seang Tana, head of the Commission ...

Laos has contracted firms to build and operate another significant hydro-power plant on the Mekong River system, adding to the existing furor over potential effects on downstream countries such as Cambodia from the controversial Xayaburi dam. The contracts, reportedly worth $1 billion, are for a series of three dams making ...

Fishery resources could fall this year because of a lack of flooding along rivers and waterways impeding fish from travelling freely or finding food to encourage their growth, a fishery official says. Sam Nov, deputy general director of Fishery Administration at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and ...

Kompong Thom provincial officials will stop illegal gold mining in seven locations in Sandan district’s Meanrith commune come November, provincial and district officials said. About 100 residents of Meanrith have been illegally digging for gold in the district for several years, provincial deputy governor King Vimean ...

Environment rights group Global Witness yesterday joined the call for an independent investigation into the April 26 murder of conservation activist Chut Wutty following the conviction of a security guard in the case. On Monday the Koh Rong Provincial Court sentenced Rann Boroth, a security guard ...

Some questions remain about whether hydro dams on the upper Mekong River in China exacerbated conditions during Cambodia’s devastating drought of 2010, environmental groups say, as China’s dam program powers ahead. When the first power-generating unit was switched on last month at China’s giant 262-metre tall ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday convicted a private security guard of accidentally killing the military police officer who allegedly shot dead the country’s most prominent environmental activist, Chut Wutty, and sentenced him to two years in prison. The presiding judge, Kham Sophary, then immediately suspended ...

At the close of a case that remained shrouded in controversy until the end, Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday found former security guard Ran Boroth guilty of the unintentional killing of military police officer In Rattana, the man on whom authorities pinned the murder of ...

Toxic runoff from small-scale gold mining operations in Battambang province killed two cattle on Wednesday, the latest casualties from pollution in the area led to the closing of more than 100 mines earlier this year. Officials from the provincial mines department yesterday said they were unaware of ...

The Mekong River Commission has released a comprehensive risk analysis of the transport of dangerous goods and issued recommendations to prevent oil spills, industrial waste and other emerging threats from navigation. Developed by the MRC Navigation Programme in Phnom Penh, the risk analysis finds that the ...

Anti-nuclear activists have called on the Thai government to clarify its involvement in Cambodia’s controversial plan to construct a nuclear power plant in the border province of Koh Kong. The activists doubted Phnom Penh’s capacity to single-handedly build and manage such a vast and risky project. Santi ...

The coastal guard has seized a fishing vessel flying the flag of Cambodia off the cost of Primorye, the press service for the Border Guard Department of the Federal Security Service for the Primorye Territory has reported. The vessel Anteus (registered in Cambodia, owned by the ...

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said yesterday that climate change will be a concern in some Asian countries, including Cambodia. He encouraged the countries to find ways to manage any affects on their economies. Economists recognize it will lower growth in some main sectors of the economy – ...

About 70 families living in Pursat province’s Kandieng district have now been evacuated to higher ground after Pursat River burst its banks on Monday night because of heavy rain from Tropical Depression Gaemi, officials said. Mr Sokha [provincial governor] added that about 400 police officers ...

An Australian company working towards mining gold from the Okvau deposit in Mondulkiri province, currently estimated at 729,000 ounces, expects to employ more than 1,000 local people during the mine’s construction phase and 500 in the   longer term. Renaissance Minerals managing director Justin Tremain told the ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court questioned two well-known human rights workers yesterday in an incitement lawsuit brought against them by a CPP commune chief, one of those questioned said. About 200 ethnic minority Tumpuon villagers, embroiled in a land dispute with the DM Group rubber company, protested ...

The court investigating the murder of a journalist has questioned a notorious former Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) colonel, who was last heard of serving a 10-year prison sentence for attempted murder, a court official said yesterday. The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has this week questioned a ...

Danish marine fuel company Go4 Bunker Denmark yesterday launched the first company in Cambodia to supply ship fuel to  vessels traveling through Cambodia’s waters, according to officials. The launch ceremony for the newly established Go4 Bunker Cambodia Co Ltd yesterday was presided over by Danish Princess ...

Villagers on Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia, who depend on fishing for subsistence, say their livelihoods are threatened by illegal commercial fishing, which continues after a government ban. And they say authorities in charge of enforcing the ban are being bribed to look the other ...

A Commerce Ministry official yesterday denied that Cambodia was exporting luxury wood logs to China, insisting that any wood leaving the country was in a “processed” form. The China Customs data also states that each year, just under 10,000 cubic meters of “logs” and about ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has summonsed for questioning Kim Seanglay, a military policeman who was the subject of one of slain journalist Hang Serei Oudom’s articles on the illegal timber trade, Chhay Thi, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said yesterday. According to their ...

An expected verdict in the unintentional murder case of the man accused of shooting slain environmentalist Chut Wutty’s killer was delayed at Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday because the presiding judge was ill. Neang Boratino, Koh Kong provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said a ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned four people- including a military police official and a police officer- in relation to the killing of journalist Hang Serei Odom, whose body was discovered hacked to death last month in the trunk of his car,a court official and ...