Environment and natural resources

KOH KONG, Cambodia (AP) — Round a bend in Cambodia’s Tatai River and the virtual silence of a tropical idyll turns suddenly into an industrial nightmare. Lush jungle hills give way to a flotilla of dredgers operating 24 hours a day, scooping up sand and piling ...

A simmering land dispute in Kratie province’s Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary flared up Friday as hundreds of desperate villagers blocked National Road 76A for four hours in an effort to prevent the clearing of their homes and farms by a rubber company, villagers and human rights ...

Authorities in Phnom Penh briefly detained about 100 villagers yesterday who were distributing leaflets to raise awareness of the ongoing destruction of Prey Long, one of Cambodia’s largest remaining primary forests. The leaflet distributors had their materials confiscated and were escorted to six commune offices ...

Singapore-listed firm HLH Group is planning to expand its presence in Cambodia with 90,000 hectares of corn, rice and soybean plantations planned over the next decade in Kompong Speu and Koh Kong provinces, an official at the company said yesterday. HLH Group came under scrutiny ...

More than one hundred villagers dressed as the forest people from the hit film “Avatar” protested in the Cambodian capital Thursday against the destruction of the country’s Prey Lang forestThey say the forest, which is a source of livelihood for some 200,000 mainly indigenous people, ...

Conservation group WWF on Wednesday called for urgent action to prevent the extinction of freshwater dolphins in the Mekong River, including the creation of special conservation zones. Entanglement in fishing nets, low calf survival rates and a steady degradation of the creature’s habitat are threatening ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen defended the government’s plan for Strung Treng province’s 400-megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam project in a letter to an SRP lawmaker, and accused opposition parties, NGOs and the media of exaggerating the negative impacts of hydropower dams. In the six-page letter ...

The wet season had come and gone with almost no rain. Despite the best efforts of the farmers from Tralach commune, in Takeo province’s Traing district, widespread crop failures two years ago brought the community to the economic, and dietary, brinkThis week, farmers in Kratie ...

In the latest government backed appropriation of protected land, nearly 20,000 hectares of the Boeung Per wildlife sanctuary have been reclassified as state private land for agro-industrial development. Two sub-decrees, obtained by The Post this week and initialed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on July ...

Ruling party senator Ly Yong Phat has defied an order endorsed by the Prime Minster to halt his controversial sand dredging activities on the Tatai river in Koh Kong, prompting authorities to request intervention, documents obtained by The Post reveal. The dredging operation on the ...

Almost 30,000 hectares of a wildlife sanctuary in Oddar Meanchey, Siem Reap and Preah Vihear provinces have been reclassified as state private land for agricultural development, drawing sharp criticism from rights groups. Four sub-decrees signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on July 22 reclassify land ...

The World Bank said on Tuesday it had stopped providing loans to Cambodia and would not resume lending until the government did something to help hundreds of families facing eviction from land around a lake in the country’s capital, Phnom Penh. “The World Bank’s last ...

Cambodia on July 28th hosted the 3rd Greater Mekong Sub- Region Environment Ministers to look forward to sustainable economic development in the region and to talk about current projects to reduce harm for regions and also to minimize several environmental challenges affecting natural resources, forest and ...

Ms Sam On, 37, has already lost her house. It was one of three homes razed in April by Kratie provincial military police, environment officials and workers of the Sovannvuthy rubber company, after a tense stand-off with about 100 villagers that villagers said ended with ...

3,800 hectares of forest in Oddor Meanchey province have been privatized for use by the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF). Families are facing eviction and the loss of their land after the seizures though some of the land was originally designated state public property. The ...

According to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) the regional and national power grids are key to development, though plans for their development have come under criticism by a number of NGOs who believe that power generation should be decentralized. The ADB’s Greater Mekong Subregion program ...

Cambodia has met 82 percent of its expected 250,000 hectares of cultivated rice after rains have relieved the drought struck province of Battambang. 400 hectares is all that remains still at risk, a small section of the 10,000 rice growing hectares in the province.  According ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday called for greater regional cooperation to tackle a range of environmental problems in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, but did not specifically address the threat posed by dams. “I call on all countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region to place more emphasis ...

Environment Minister Mok Mareth yesterday defended the recent surge of economic land concessions granted by his ministry inside the country’s enviornmental conservation areas, saying that they would do more to help the areas than hurt them. Mr Mareth’s comments came while responding to questions at ...

Villagers on Koh Kyong island in Preah Sihanouk province are preparing a complaint over more than 300 allegedly unlicensed fishermen who they say are illegally operating in local waters. Loung Bunny, chief of the Association for Natural Protection in Ochroy commune, said yesterday  that fishermen from ...

Construction  of the 1,260 megawatt Xayaburi dam on the Mekong river has been suspended after a meeting between the USA, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos. A report from the Mekong River Commission (MRC) has been leaked showing that construction was begun on the dam without ...

In Svay Rieng province villagers are in their fourth day of protests after authorities refused to meet with them to discuss a land concession that Metapheap Company has received in order to open a rubber plantation. The company was granted a 1,230 hectare land concession ...

Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, has called for a “pause” on construction of hydroelectric dams along the Mekong River. She is urging time and consideration for all who would be affected by the dams, with 11 planned for the Lower Mekong, nine of which ...

Dredging in Kompong Cham province along the Mekong river is being cited as the cause for the collapse of the river bank and the force behind more than a dozen families having to leave their homes. An area of approximately 20 meters y 200 meters ...