National parks and wildlife sanctuaries

The Environment Minister instructed his staff to cooperate with relevant ministries and institutions to improve management in the sector at the closing of the ministry’s annual meeting on Monday. ...

Environmental NGOs expressed concerns this week about a requirement from the Ministry of Environment to get advanced permission to patrol the Prey Lang protected forest, saying doing so could lead to illegal loggers getting tipped off, given the history of collusion with officials in the ...

Speaking at a workshop hosted by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) on the past four years of conservation in the so-called Eastern Plains Landscape – a project with $1.42 million in funding from the EU and an additional $420,000 from USAID and the ...

The environment minister has promised to investigate allegations that a tycoon-owned company is using a land concession to illegally log wood in a protected area in Preah Vihear province. ...

Seven Vietnamese nationals who are tied to a timber smuggling ring along with top Mondulkiri provincial officials were sentenced to one year in prison yesterday. ...

Some 124 logs of luxury timber were discovered on a riverbed on Sunday within Mondulkiri’s Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary some 500 metres from a military base, officials said yesterday. ...

An oknha accused of overseeing a massive illegal logging scheme in Mondulkiri has yet to appear for a court summons issued more than a month ago, according to the investigating judge. ...

Government officials and environmental groups yesterday celebrated the discovery of 121 lesser adjutant stork nests in Preah Vihear province, chalking the success up to a joint programme to hire locals to guard the nests. Environment Ministry rangers and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) workers started counting ...

Illegal logging within the Prey Lang protected forest decreased significantly year-on-year over a six-month period ending in February, collected data show, though forest-clearing in the area remains rampant. ...

The Environment Ministry is to request the creation of six new protected areas to safeguard biodiversity and boost conservation in the country. Tim Sitha, deputy director of the general department of conservation, said the ministry has been studying the potential to establish the new areas.  ...

Fifty endangered sarus cranes have hatched from 27 nests protected by conservationists and villagers in Cambodia’s Northern Plains, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The nests are in Kulen Promtep and Chhep wildlife sanctuaries. ...

Four endangered hog deer, once thought to be extinct in Cambodia, were caught on camera in Kratie province for the first time in a decade, according to the World Wildlife Fund. ...

A Koh Kong environmental official yesterday said a company with a sand-washing facility in an area where the Ministry of Mines and Energy last month banned sand dredging would be allowed to keep and operate its facility. ...

Police are investigating after a mob of villagers in Preah Vihear province let fly with fence posts in a clash with environmental officials following a logging bust, leaving the chief of Prey Preah Roka Wildlife Sanctuary with a serious head injury. ...

The government is working in conjunction with the World Wildlife Fund on a plan to release eight tigers into the wild in Mondulkiri province by 2022. WWF-Cambodia communication manager Un Chakrey said yesterday that they are working with the ministries of environment, agriculture and tourism, among ...

Activists and a fisherman yesterday claimed that a company has started sand dredging within a wildlife sanctuary in Koh Kong, despite a standing ban on sand exports from companies operating in coastal areas. ...

For the first time in five years, a nest with seven eggs of the endangered white-winged duck was discovered in the Northern Plains of Cambodia, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced yesterday. ...

A group of about 1,000 families living in Siem Reap province’s Phnom Kulen National Park will be relocated to prevent them from continuing an environmentally detrimental trend of clearing land, building homes, selling and repeating, the environment minister said on Thursday. ...

The government body charged with managing the Angkor Archaeological Park on Monday started tearing down the first of more than 500 homes and shophouses illegally built within the park in the weeks before the June 4 commune elections. ...

Two farmers caught with dead monkeys in Mondolkiri province’s Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary have been charged with poaching endangered wildlife.   ...

The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization, a conservation organisation in Kampong Speu, pledged yesterday to file a letter of complaint to authorities after learning that 6 hectares of protected forestland were cleared illegally. ...

Some 200 hectares of forest in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary have been cleared and sold for up to $400 per hectare – allegedly with an official’s blessing – while an additional 700 hectares around the protected area face clearing. ...

Eleven wild elephants were rescued on Saturday in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima protected area after becoming trapped in a former bomb crater without food for four days, though rangers will continue to monitor the herd to ensure it reaccepts one juvenile who was handled by humans ...

Two military commanders, a military police commander and a provincial police chief in Mondulkiri were questioned by the national military police’s anti-logging task force yesterday for their alleged involvement in a Vietnamese timber smuggling operation. ...