News
Illegal logging ‘rampant’ in sanctuary
Provincial military police confiscated three tractors transporting three metres of luxury wood and two circular saws travelling out of Kampong Speu’s protected Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary yesterday. Chea Hean, director of Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organisation (NRWPO), arrived to investigate illegal logging in the sanctuary ...
Phak Seangly and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/illegal-logging-%E2%80%98rampant%E2%80%99-sanctuary
Elephants likely shot: NGO
A group of endangered Asian elephants found dead in Mondulkiri province on Sunday were likely slaughtered, investigators from conservation group WWF-Cambodia have found. The organisation said in a statement yesterday an investigation into the deaths in protected Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary suggested the elephants were “slaughtered ...
Phak Seangly and Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/elephants-likely-shot-ngo
Officials Criticize Laos Over Don Sahong Dam
A day after the Cambodia National Mekong Committee (CNMC) received impact assessment documents from Laos for their controversial Don Sahong dam, Cambodian and Vietnamese officials criticized Laos’ lack of transparency on the mainstream Mekong dam. Located less than 1 km from the Lao-Cambodian border, the 240-MW ...
Kuch Naren and Dene-Hern Chen
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/officials-criticize-laos-over-don-sahong-dam-44888/
Activists seek UN monitors
Anti-logging activists wrote to the United Nations yesterday to call for the monitoring of a lawsuit in which they accuse hundreds of officials in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary of illegal deforestation. The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) listed 241 officials it ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/activists-seek-un-monitors
Climate report paints dismal picture for region
As much of the country grapples with crippling floods, a comprehensive report on global climate change released yesterday predicts the situation could be poised to get even worse. According to the report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as the planet grows warmer, cyclones making ...
Stuart White
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/climate-report-paints-dismal-picture-region
Five More Years For Hun Sen; Some Ministers Reshuffled
A day after its opening session and still devoid of the 55 lawmakers-elect of the opposition CNRP, the country’s new, one-party National Assembly voted Prime Minister Hun Sen in for yet another five-year term Tuesday and approved an extensive reshuffle of his Cabinet. In a ...
Hul Reaksmey and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/five-more-years-for-hun-sen-some-ministers-reshuffled-43133/
Tycoon’s firm behind summons, soldier says
The Pursat Provincial Court has issued a summons to a soldier based on the Thai border for allegedly clearing protected land in Veal Veng district, a move the man believes was orchestrated by a company owned by tycoon Try Pheap, which is embroiled in an ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tycoon%E2%80%99s-firm-behind-summons-soldier-says
Timber cache hidden in plantation
A raid on an orange plantation netted more than five cubic metres of illegally logged rosewood and other luxury-grade timber in Pursat’s Kravanh district on Friday, local officials said. More than 25 police officers, forestry administration officials and environment ministry officers conducted the operation, which found ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/timber-cache-hidden-plantation
Koh Pich Awash With Development, but Don’t Ask for Details
Business is booming on Koh Pich. Since development began in 2006—and about 300 families were pushed off what was then farmland—the island has slowly grown into the symbol of commercial modernity in Phnom Penh. The developer, Overseas Cambodia Investment Corp., is also extending the island by ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/koh-pich-awash-with-development-but-dont-ask-for-details-36411/
Forest officials involved in logging, villagers say
Communities living in the protected Snuol wildlife sanctuary in Kratie province said yesterday that the sanctuary was being destroyed by private companies acting in collusion with local wildlife officers. Snuol forest community representative Mom Sakim said private interests were claiming large areas of the sanctuary without ...
Mine Safety Law on Agenda
The government plans to draft a law designed to govern safety standards in the Kingdom’s mining industry, an official said yesterday, little more than a week after at least one gold miner went missing when a shaft collapsed in Preah Vihear province. Khieu Muth, a secretary ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013053165981/National/mine-safety-law-on-agenda.html
Residents Call for Foul-Smelling Factory to Move
About 100 people protested Wednesday evening outside a Phnom Penh ice-making factory owned by the daughter of deputy Kompong Spue governor Tong Seng, complaining that the factory causes a bad smell and that the health of residents in Russei Keo district’s Kilometer 6 commune was ...
Cambodia launches green growth plan 2013-2030
Cambodia on Friday adopted the national policy and strategic plan for green growth 2013-2030, aiming at developing the economy with consideration for environmental and natural resources sustainability. It said the country has already adopted several legal instruments for the green growth implementation. Those included ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-03/01/c_132201617.htm
Land Dispute Body Blames Concession Troubles on Ministries
The head of the country’s National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution on Wednesday said his authority was unable to resolve land disputes and that the responsibility for settling such disputes rested with the ministries responsible for handing out economic land concessions (ELCs) in the first ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/land-dispute-body-blames-concession-troubles-on-ministries-12099/
Villagers Still in the Dark About Lower Sesan Hydropower Dam
Thousands of villagers who will lose their land to the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam in Stung Treng province later this year have not been told of the government’s plans for their resettlement and compensation, a new study released yesterday shows. Through interviews with ...
Activists call on government to adopt forest law
Members of the Prey Lang Community Network yesterday called on the government to approve a forest preservation sub-decree that has been in draft form since 2011. Hoeun Sopheap, representative of the Kampong Thom provincial Prey Lang community, said the sub-decree would help protect the biodiversity of ...
Official says resettlement sites are good for development
Widely different interpretations of the government’s land policy were voiced at a conference on Land Security and Housing Rights on Thursday in Phnom Penh, with civil servants defending mass relocations, while rural evictees spoke of being forced into poverty due to loss of their land. ...
Siem Reap Market Fire Kills 8
Eight people, four of them children, were killed when fire ripped through Siem Reap City’s popular night market in the early hours of Saturday morning, officials and witnesses said. The fire, which stared at about 2 a.m., left the market completely gutted and damage estimated at ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/siem-reap-market-fire-kills-8-6531/
1 in 20 Firms Carry Out Environment Assessments
Only about 5 percent of the roughly 2,000 major development projects, such as dams, roads and bridges, approved by the government between 2004 and 2011 carried out environmental impact assessments, an official at the ministry of Environment said yesterday. Speaking at a workshop in Phnom Penh ...
Simon Lewis and Khuon Narim, P.1
http://www.cambodiadaily.com
Environment plan passes unopposed
In a sitting of parliament yesterday that was rather more subdued than the vicious session that led to an opposition walkout a day earlier, a law to support an environmental program passed with bipartisan support. All but two of the 93 legislat-ors present voted in favour ...
32 Land Concessions Approved Since Moratorium
Despite a moratorium on the granting of new economic land concessions (ELCs), the government has approved at least 32 ELCs since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced their suspension in May. According to sub-decrees dated from May onward and provided by local human rights group Adhoc, Mr. ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/32-land-concessions-approved-since-moratorium-5725/
2013 National Budget to Rise Above $3B
Government spending next year will total more than $3 billion, a 16.2 percent increase from the $2.6 billion set aside for 2012, according to a draft of the national budget obtained Friday. The budget states that the government will allocate some $400 million, or 13.32 ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/2013-national-budget-to-rise-above-3b-5428/
Review of Land Concessions Foiled by Rain, Leeches
Six months after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a moratorium on the granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) and a legal review of the concessions that already exist, the Agriculture Ministry has yet to begin the review process due to rain, and the danger of ...
Farming implicated in climate change
Food production accounts for almost one third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, according to a study published last week by the agricultural research organisation CGIAR. Food systems, from growing crops and raising livestock to storage and transportation, contribute 19 to 29 per cent of global ...