News

Better communication from authorities in Cambodia and Vietnam might have prevented the deaths of villagers and the destruction of homes in Ratanakkiri at times when water has been released from Vietnam’s Yali Falls dam, researchers said yesterday. Speaking at a national workshop about the Yali Falls ...

The Asian Development Bank is considering providing funds to a controversial 400 megawatt dam project in Laos that could have adverse impacts on the Mekong River in downstream Cambodia. Conservation group International Rivers wants the Lao government to pull the plug on the $1 billion Xe ...

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 ...

Authorities are preparing to evacuate more than 150 families from Banteay Meanchey province’s O’Chrou district, should flooding in the area get worse due to heavy rainfall and runoff from a dam that opened its gates in Thailand on Monday. The families’ homes are already affected by ...

Thai authorities yesterday opened a dam near the Cambodian border, a move that could worsen flooding and affect thousands of people in Banteay Meanchey province, according to Cambodian officials. Mr. Vanda [vice president of the National Committee for Disaster Management (NCDM)] said the excess water ...

China’s dam building spree on the upper Mekong River raises new tensions over water resources Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang obviously had China in mind when he warned recently that tensions over water resources are not only threatening economic growth but presenting a source of conflict Cambodia, ...

Cambodian Minister of Industry, Mines and Energy on Thursday hailed Chinese companies for hugely investing in the country’s energy sector, which is a key element to support the sustainable social and economic development. Suy Sem’s appreciation was made during a bilateral meeting with Wu Yin, ...

Villagers in Kratie province have long feared the proposed Sambor hydroelectric dam and the impact it could have on their subsistence fishing and riverbank agriculture. According to Resilience on the Mekong: A Vulnerability and Adaptation Assessment in North-East Cambodia, a report released by the World Wildlife Foundation on Friday, ...

A waterfall has been blasted less than two kilometres from the Cambodian-Lao border, beginning work on another unapproved hydroelectric dam on the Mekong river, environmental group International Rivers claimed yesterday. Pianporn Deetes, the Thailand campaign coordinator for International Rivers, said she had learned of the excavation work, near ...

While the humanitarian objections to Mondulkiri’s proposed Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam project are well documented, a report from conservation NGO International Rivers yesterday highlighted an objection of another sort: the Lower Sesan wouldn’t be a very good location for a dam in the first ...

The hydro-power dams planned for three tributary rivers in north-eastern Cambodia will have unforeseeable social and environmental consequences for the regional and its people, according to a report released yesterday. Authored by International Rivers and 3S Rivers Protection Network, the report focuses on six hydro-power dams planned for the Sesan, ...

Cambodia would significantly strain its land and water resources if a projected series of large-scale hydro-power dams are built along the Mekong, according to projections released this week. Fish remains the primary source of protein and researchers [from the Australia National University in Canberra and World Wildlife Fund] ...

The economic, social and environmental consequences of the construction of dams on the Mekong River could be devastating.. ANU research suggests that millions of people are in danger of going hungry if the dams proceed. Replacing fish as a protein source with alternative food would use ...

Thirteen percent of more than 2,500 freshwater species of fish, crabs and plants profiled across the region are under threat of extinction, a report released on Wednesday says. According to an International Union for Conservation of Nature study of freshwater biodiversity in the “Indo-Burma” region, which includes Cambodia, ...

The Cambodian government has committed to the construction of five dams along the Mekong River in order to meet a huge demand for electricity, but environmental groups warn that severe repercussions loom for this strategy. “While each project proposed in Cambodia comes with a different set ...

The Royal Government needs to address the environmental impacts not only from climate change but from man-made, water-based infrastructure such as dams before another natural disaster like the recent flooding claims hundreds of lives, community representatives said yesterday. At the first NGO Forum conference on climate ...

China’s dam-building ambitions and alleged lack of transparency were front and centre yesterday during a roundtable discussion on Mekong River development held in the capital. Representatives from the Chinese embassy defended their country’s record, claiming that China was “eager to participate” in regional cooperation mechanisms. “We aren’t ...

Cambodia approved $1.2 billion in investments from China in the first six months of the year, a 104 percent increase in the amount of Chinese money set to flood into the economy compared to the same period last year, the Cambodian Investment Board said. The ...

WikiLeaks has recently released US diplomatic cables that show that the there was no warning system along the Sesan river in Ratanakkiri province for floods in 2007. There have been many complaints by the communities along the river of the floods caused by dams along ...