Environment and natural resources
Social media users in a flap as hundreds of bats die
Hundreds of dead bats were found inside Siem Reap’s Phnom Bouk temple in Banteay Srey district after district police and environmental officers were notified by local residents on Tuesday. ...
Pav Suy
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/24097/social-media-users-in-a-flap-as-hundreds-of-bats-die/
Car chase results in capture of notorious timber trafficker
Police in Mondolkiri province yesterday arrested a former military police officer with two outstanding warrants after chasing down his SUV and finding a cache of illegally sourced luxury wood inside. ...
Buth Kimsay
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/car-chase-results-in-capture-of-notorious-timber-trafficker-111568/
Crackdown halts illegal timber trade with Vietnam: gov’t
The illegal timber trade to Vietnam, a key nexus in a shadow industry worth billions of dollars, has been all but eliminated, an official said yesterday in summarising a new report from the government’s anti-logging commission, a claim met with disbelief by more than one ...
Mech Dara and Igor Kossov
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/crackdown-halts-illegal-timber-trade-vietnam-govt
Patrol thwarts bid to cross Thai border illegally
Police in Koh Kong province reported yesterday that 49 Cambodians were caught trying to cross the Thai border during a forest patrol on Monday in Smach Meanchey district. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/patrol-thwarts-bid-cross-thai-border-illegally
Hornbill rescued in Seima protected forest
A patrol in Seima Protected Forest in Mondulkiri last weekend found a young great hornbill near an illegal logging site. Hornbill sightings have become rarer as the bird’s population drops. ...
Jonathan Cox
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23925/hornbill-rescued-in-seima-protected-forest/
Officials survey Prey Lang from sky
Making a dramatic arrival by helicopter at the Sofitel Hotel in Phnom Penh after a flyover of Prey Lang forest, Environment Minister Say Sam Al and US Ambassador to Cambodia William Heidt discussed a plan to make the Kingdom’s largest forest a protected area. ...
Pech Sotheary and Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/officials-survey-prey-lang-sky
Defender of Cambodia's dwindling forests wins goldman prize
The latest crackdown on illegal logging in Cambodia is “just a game” and big timber traders are winning, says Ouch Leng, a former government official who has spent two decades helping poor villagers fight poaching of precious tropical forests. Leng’s tenacious and perilous crusade to stop ...
Elaine Kurtenbach
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/defender-cambodias-dwindling-forests-wins-goldman-prize-38473467
Kampong Chhnang forest fires out of control
About 130 hectares of protected wetlands in three villages in Kampong Chhnang province’s Boribor district were consumed in forest fires last week, according to a police report issued by the Interior Ministry. ...
Buth Reaksmey Kongkea
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23878/kampong-chhnang-forest-fires-out-of-control/
Expert says tiger reintroduction plan sure to fail
A leading Indian conservationist and tiger expert is warning that a multimillion-dollar scheme to reintroduce the big cat to Cambodia will be a “tragic failure” that could cost lives, and that its advocates will come to rue the attempt. ...
Zsombor Peter
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/expert-says-tiger-reintroduction-plan-sure-to-fail-111330/
World tiger numbers rise for first time in 100 years
The number of tigers in the wild has risen for the first time in 100 years, marking a major turning point in the big cat’s plight against poaching and habitat loss. Figures collated from national surveys conducted in tiger range states and from the International Union ...
India may send tigers to Cambodia
There will be discussions on whether some tigers can be relocated from India to Cambodia, at the third Asia Ministerial Conference on Tiger Conservation. No evidence of tigers have been found in Cambodia since 2007 and the World Wide Fund for Nature recently declared tigers ...
Jayashree Nandi
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/flora-fauna/India-may-send-tigers-to-Cambodia/articleshow/51786692.cms
Smuggled turtles discovered in Kampong Chhnang province
A driver’s assistant has been arrested for smuggling 18 turtles hidden in mattress covers in a truck from Thailand on Saturday in Kampong Chhnang’s Toul Kralanh village, according to officials. ...
Pav Suy
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23814/smuggled-turtles-discovered-in-kampong-chhnang-province/
Government says Kep water safe; tourists pour back in
After issuing a public health warning earlier this month for Kep province due to an algal bloom in the coastal water, the government on Friday lifted its precautionary ban on swimming, fishing and eating seafood in the province, according to a statement. ...
Kang Sothear and Hannah Hawkins
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-says-kep-water-safe-tourists-pour-back-in-111115/
Teachers’ homes to be made of illegal timber
Houses will be built for school teachers from illegally-felled timber seized by authorities, the Ministry of Education has announced, but before work can start on the new structures officials from the ministry have been asked to gather information on which schools need the houses the ...
Taing Vida
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23767/teachers----homes-to-be-made-of-illegal-timber/
Environmental code aims to safeguard natural resources
A new plan to protect the environment started taking shape yesterday when the Environment Ministry held a workshop to discuss ideas on how to convert numerous laws into a single code to govern the county’s natural resources. It is expected the process will take two years ...
Ros Chanveasna
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23704/environmental-code-aims-to-safeguard-natural-resources/
Controversial elephant swap with Japan called off
A controversial proposed animal swap that would have seen elephants Kiri and Seila sent from the notorious Teuk Chhou Zoo in Kampot to a zoo in Japan in exchange for other exotic species has been officially called off, new documents show. ...
Charles Parkinson and Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/controversial-elephant-swap-japan-called
Tigers to be reintroduced to Cambodia in 2019
Eight tigers will be released into the Cambodian wild in an unprecedented plan projected to cost between $20 and $50 million, the Ministry of Agriculture and WWF-Cambodia announced at an event in Phnom Penh on Wednesday. ...
Kang Sothear and Peter Ford
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tigers-to-be-reintroduced-to-cambodia-in-2019-110954/
Mekong dams’ annual impact put at $450M
A 30-month study by Vietnamese researchers on the impact of 11 proposed hydroelectric dams in the Lower Mekong Basin (LMB) has found that the economic damage to Cambodia alone will be worth some $450 million per year. ...
Igor Kossov
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/mekong-dams-annual-impact-put-450m
Plenty of fish, but no buyers
At what should be a boom time ahead of the New Year, seafood vendors in Kampot have full baskets but no buyers as the algae bloom around Kep turns the water bright green and dead fish wash ashore. The government has issued a warning against swimming ...
Chea Vannak
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/23571/plenty-of-fish--but-no-buyers/
China dams blamed for exacerbating SE Asia water shortage
As China opened one of its six dams on the upper Mekong River last month to help parched Southeast Asian countries down river cope with a record drought, it was hailed as benevolent water diplomacy. But to critics of hydroelectric dams built on the Mekong over ...
Tran Van Minh and Stephen Wright
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/china/national-news/2016/04/04/462555/China-dams.htm
Algal blooms off Kep coast lead to swimming and seafood scares
A massive algal bloom off the coast of Kep that has left scores of dead coastal crabs and fish in its wake resulted in warnings from the Ministry of Environment and Prime Minister Hun Sen this weekend to avoid eating seafood or swimming in the ...
Brent Crane and Pech Sotheary
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/algal-blooms-kep-coast-lead-swimming-and-seafood-scares
Attacked Prey Lang activist vows to keep up the fight
Sleeping in a hammock strung between two tall trees, deep inside Prey Lang forest, environmental activist Phorn Sopheak was startled awake at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when her parked motorbike toppled over onto her body. ...
George Wright and Sek Odom
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/attacked-prey-lang-activist-vows-to-keep-up-the-fight-110769/
Residents, activists call for city to stop filling in lakes
Protesters from Phnom Penh’s lakeside communities spent an hour facing off with police on Thursday on a road on the former Boeng Kak lake before turning around and taking a different route to the National Assembly, where they demanded an end to the infilling and ...
Police block families of mother nature activists during march
Security forces on Thursday blocked two mothers and a wife of jailed activists from the environmental group Mother Nature from walking to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to protest their family members’ imprisonment, before a representative of the premier’s cabinet chastised them for using the ...
Khuon Narim
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/police-block-families-of-mother-nature-activists-during-march-110706/