Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

In a rare display of solidarity outside of Phnom Penh, more than 1,000 people with varied land-related grievances across Siem Reap province gathered in front of the provincial governor’s office on Tuesday to demand action, and left with a promise from the governor to help. Activist ...

The Chinese government signed to provide 300 biodigesters to Cambodian households on Monday, officials said. Sar Chetra, deputy secretary general of the Cambodian Ministry of Agriculture, signed to receive the donation from Song Xiaoguo, economic councilor at the Chinese Embassy in Cambodia. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen will lead a delegation to visit the People’s Republic of Bangladesh next week, according to a statement by Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. ...

Indigenous villagers in Mondolkiri province say relevant authorities that are supposed to crack down on forestry crimes instead collude with logging companies and powerful businessmen, allowing them cut down trees. That has put their forest tribal traditions and livelihoods, which are dependent on forests, in ...

SIEM PANG DISTRICT, Stung Treng province – For the elite few granted the right to level swathes of woodland in the north of this remote province, the timber trade is worth a fortune. For the Forestry Administration—the government body charged with policing logging—business is also booming. While ...

Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture have called on farmers to cease using chemical pesticides and adopt environmentally friendly methods in an effort to increase yields and reduce damage to produce. At an agriculture workshop on biological control agents hosted yesterday by the Ministry of Agriculture, ...

Villagers from forest communities in nine provinces called on the government yesterday to take action after alleging that “the rich and powerful” are causing the “serious destruction” of their livelihoods. The villagers, with the support of two NGOs – the Children’s Development Association and Community Peace-Building ...

Inspired by Australian mining regulations, the Cambodian government is considering a raft of changes to the mineral resources mining law, including a rethink of the sector’s comparatively high tax rate. Citing discussions held with Western Australia state mining industry representatives last week, Meng Saktheara, secretary of ...

Authorities in Stung Treng province discovered and confiscated a haul of luxury wood that was being transported in three trucks on Sunday night from the protected Virachey National Park, officials said Tuesday. Provincial deputy police chief Yorn Din said the trucks were stopped and searched as ...

Cambodia’s exports of protected rosewood and other high-value timber to China more than tripled last year, according to U.N. figures cited in a new report that blames lax law enforcement across the Mekong region and skyrocketing demand in China for pushing some species to the ...

A forestry official with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) who is usually tight-lipped acknowledged last week that his agency has struggled to combat illegal logging, blaming a shortage of manpower and entrenched opportunistic logging by villagers – explanations that were laughed off ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al met with private firms with land concessions last week to gauge their compliance with government rules and regulations, and adherence to their own contracts. Amid mounting local and international pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen in mid-2012 ordered a freeze on ...

A little more than two years after signing off on a scheme aimed at improving protection of the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, experts said last week they were concerned that Mekong dams would see wholesale destruction of the population. During a two-day workshop that closed on ...

One hundred fishermen in Banteay Meanchey province’s Sisophon town filed a complaint with local authorities yesterday, accusing a provincial fisheries administration official in Phniet commune of selling their subsistence fishing lot to a businessman. ...

Police in Kompong Speu province on Monday night stopped three container trucks on National Road 4 bound for Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, seizing more than 100 logs of illegal luxury wood, officials said. Provincial economic police chief Nhem Sao said that his officers and police from Chbar ...

Military police and local forestry officials in Stung Treng province confiscated more than 90 pieces of luxury-grade Thnong wood from a private farm on Sunday, but only after the suspected owner escaped, according to officials. Provincial court prosecutor Chroeng Khmao said a joint force of military ...

Cambodia’s milled rice production is expected to increase to around 6 million tons (about 9.34 million tons, basis paddy) in 2013, up about 1% from the previous year, according to the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). ...

Cambodian paddy rice production fell only slightly during the first half of this year’s dry season, despite 12,000 hectares of usually productive land deemed unusable due to last year’s floods. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, dry season paddy rice production between December ...

Sixty-eight Khmer Krom families in Takeo province allege they are being forcibly evicted, charged by fishery authorities with illegally occupying a nature preserve. Yesterday, three representatives from the Borei Choslar district, Sangkum Meanchey village, were summonsed to court. ...

Cambodian fishery exports rose slightly during the first three months of the year, according to a report by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The report, which was released yesterday, says that fish exports reached 4,800 tonnes in the first quarter, a year-on-year increase of ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s brother Hun Neng and a Vietnamese state-owned rubber firm are involved in an illegal logging cartel involving several well-connected companies operating on a “massive scale” in the embattled Prey Lang forest, forest monitors working in the area allege. Video footage and photographs ...

The government and industry insiders are worried about the steady decline of rubber prices over the last three years, during which the area it is cultivated in has grown. “Farmers and investors raised concern . . . over the trend of the market and the price of natural ...

Cambodian authorities intervened in far fewer illegal fishing cases last year compared with 2012, when Prime Minister Hun Sen first banned commercial angling nationwide in a bid to replenish waterways and aid small-scale fishermen. According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, which released an ...

Economic land concessionaires not abiding by their contracts could have their licences revoked if they have seriously breached the terms, Prime Minister Hun Sen has said. Illegally seizing forest land would be punished under the Law on Forestry, he said on Friday, speaking at an annual ...