បរិស្ថាន និងធនធានធម្មជាតិ

The collective power of agricultural co-operatives could bring huge benefits to poor, small-scale farmers, a Phnom Penh conference for international World Food Day heard on Friday. The sentiments were shared by the director of Cambodia’s General Directorate of Agriculture, So Khan Rithy Kun, who said farming ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen publicly castigated the Kampong Thom provincial governor in a speech on Saturday for allegedly claiming a large portion of land and saying it was needed for the local office of the Cambodian Red Cross, an agency lead by Hun Sen’s wife, Bun ...

Cambodia’s small economy leaves it especially vulnerable to devastation in the face of large-scale natural disasters, United Nations agencies and Cambodian officials warned last week. “The relative size of an economy adds to the vulnerability as seen particularly in the case of the Lao Peoples’ ...

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 ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court yesterday questioned the first of two human rights workers who are suing local officials for allegedly disrupting a July meeting they were hosting for villagers in Lumphat district. Deputy court prosecutor Ros Saram said he questioned Chhim Savuth, program officer for the ...

Reporters Without Borders has joined mounting criticism of the government’s handling of the April 26 murder of environmental activist Chut Wutty. On Monday, a security guard was convicted of accidentally killing the officer officially blamed for the activist’s death. “How convenient,” the Paris-based advocacy group said in a ...

Sitting at his outpost overlooking the Mekong River, Deab Kuy remembers an incident some years ago when fishermen threatened to attack him if they were stopped from casting their nets around the river’s sandy islets here in Sambok commune. The outpost, little more than a wooden house on ...

Residents of Kratie province had an education in conservation yesterday as the government and outside partners reiterated a September sub-decree banning gill nets on a sizable stretch of the Mekong in a bid to protect the badly endangered Mekong River dolphin. Touch Seang Tana, head of the Commission ...

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 ...

Fishery resources could fall this year because of a lack of flooding along rivers and waterways impeding fish from travelling freely or finding food to encourage their growth, a fishery official says. Sam Nov, deputy general director of Fishery Administration at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fishery and ...

Kompong Thom provincial officials will stop illegal gold mining in seven locations in Sandan district’s Meanrith commune come November, provincial and district officials said. About 100 residents of Meanrith have been illegally digging for gold in the district for several years, provincial deputy governor King Vimean ...

Environment rights group Global Witness yesterday joined the call for an independent investigation into the April 26 murder of conservation activist Chut Wutty following the conviction of a security guard in the case. On Monday the Koh Rong Provincial Court sentenced Rann Boroth, a security guard ...

Some questions remain about whether hydro dams on the upper Mekong River in China exacerbated conditions during Cambodia’s devastating drought of 2010, environmental groups say, as China’s dam program powers ahead. When the first power-generating unit was switched on last month at China’s giant 262-metre tall ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday convicted a private security guard of accidentally killing the military police officer who allegedly shot dead the country’s most prominent environmental activist, Chut Wutty, and sentenced him to two years in prison. The presiding judge, Kham Sophary, then immediately suspended ...

At the close of a case that remained shrouded in controversy until the end, Koh Kong Provincial Court yesterday found former security guard Ran Boroth guilty of the unintentional killing of military police officer In Rattana, the man on whom authorities pinned the murder of ...

Toxic runoff from small-scale gold mining operations in Battambang province killed two cattle on Wednesday, the latest casualties from pollution in the area led to the closing of more than 100 mines earlier this year. Officials from the provincial mines department yesterday said they were unaware of ...

The Mekong River Commission has released a comprehensive risk analysis of the transport of dangerous goods and issued recommendations to prevent oil spills, industrial waste and other emerging threats from navigation. Developed by the MRC Navigation Programme in Phnom Penh, the risk analysis finds that the ...

Anti-nuclear activists have called on the Thai government to clarify its involvement in Cambodia’s controversial plan to construct a nuclear power plant in the border province of Koh Kong. The activists doubted Phnom Penh’s capacity to single-handedly build and manage such a vast and risky project. Santi ...

The coastal guard has seized a fishing vessel flying the flag of Cambodia off the cost of Primorye, the press service for the Border Guard Department of the Federal Security Service for the Primorye Territory has reported. The vessel Anteus (registered in Cambodia, owned by the ...

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim said yesterday that climate change will be a concern in some Asian countries, including Cambodia. He encouraged the countries to find ways to manage any affects on their economies. Economists recognize it will lower growth in some main sectors of the economy – ...

About 70 families living in Pursat province’s Kandieng district have now been evacuated to higher ground after Pursat River burst its banks on Monday night because of heavy rain from Tropical Depression Gaemi, officials said. Mr Sokha [provincial governor] added that about 400 police officers ...

An Australian company working towards mining gold from the Okvau deposit in Mondulkiri province, currently estimated at 729,000 ounces, expects to employ more than 1,000 local people during the mine’s construction phase and 500 in the   longer term. Renaissance Minerals managing director Justin Tremain told the ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court questioned two well-known human rights workers yesterday in an incitement lawsuit brought against them by a CPP commune chief, one of those questioned said. About 200 ethnic minority Tumpuon villagers, embroiled in a land dispute with the DM Group rubber company, protested ...