ដីធ្លី
Defamation suits follow NGO report
Tycoon Try Pheap has filed a defamation complaint against two people quoted in an NGO report released last week that accused him of illegal logging and widespread land grabbing, summonses obtained yesterday reveal. The documents, bearing the signature of Kandal Provincial Court prosecutor Sam Rithy Veasna, ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/defamation-suits-follow-ngo-report
Asia’s forests grow, but not in Kingdom: NGO
Forest land in Asia-Pacific countries has grown overall since 2002, according to a study released last week, but Cambodia was one of only three countries surveyed to buck the trend. Out of 14 countries included in the study by the Regional Community Forestry Training Center (RECOFTC), ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/asia%E2%80%99s-forests-grow-not-kingdom-ngo
Ratanakkiri Temple Now in Land Concession
Like most millennium-old structures discovered in the forests of Cambodia, the locals had known all along about this one. Jarai minority villagers in this remote spot in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district not only knew about it, but they revered the red-brick temple, using it as a ...
Kuch Naren and Michelle Vachon
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ratanakkiri-temple-now-in-land-concession-47779/
VN Rubber Company Says It Improves Forest
The Vietnamese Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) company, the majority shareholder of several economic land concessions in Ratanakkiri province, on Friday rebuffed accusations that it had logged forests and forced evictions, claiming that its activities improved the environment and the livelihoods of locals. Through several companies, ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/vn-rubber-company-says-it-improves-forest-47771/
Lumber Tycoon Denies Allegations of Illegal Deforestation
The assistant of a lumber tycoon accused of major deforestation and forced evictions rejected Thursday the findings of a recent report by local rights groups. The Cambodian Human Rights Task Force said in its report that some 1,400 families had been pushed from their land by ...
Kong Sothanarith
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/lumber-tycoon-denies-allegations-of-illegal-deforestation-cambodia/1794954.html
Answers demanded on dam site
A month after a company owned by tycoon Kith Meng was ordered to suspend logging the reservoir area of the controversial Lower Sesan II dam, the government yesterday threatened legal action against it if its orders aren’t followed. In a letter obtained by the Post yesterday, the Council ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/answers-demanded-dam-site
16 Tumpoun villagers accused of logging
The Forestry Administration fined 16 ethnic Tumpoun villagers $400 each for allegedly logging within the Yak Oum tourism site in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district on Wednesday, said Chhay Thy, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc. The villagers were accused of logging after clearing a patch of ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/16-tumpoun-villagers-accused-logging
Environment Ministry Denies Issuing New ELC to Logging Firm
The Ministry of Environment on Thursday denied that a private agro-industry firm had been issued an “unofficial” land concession inside Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, as stated on Monday by the provincial governor. In response to claims by local officials that Daun Penh Agrico Co. Ltd. ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/environment-ministry-denies-issuing-new-elc-to-logging-firm-47675/
Hun Sen’s Student Volunteers to Resume Land-Titling Program
The government is set to start re-deploying student volunteers to measure and demarcate plots of land across the country as part of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s land-titling scheme, which was briefly suspended ahead of July’s national election. The program was announced by the prime minister in ...
Kuch Naren and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-student-volunteers-to-resume-land-titling-program-47528/
Official Says Legality of Sanctuary Logging Unknown
A district-level Environment Ministry official in Ratanakkiri province on Wednesday claimed that he had no way to determine the legality of logging operations by firms with private land concessions inside the province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. The claim by Chou Sopheak, director of Lumphat district’s environment department, ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/official-says-legality-of-sanctuary-logging-unknown-47518/
Numbers don’t add up
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has released a nine-month status report on 2013’s illegal timber seizures, saying it had confiscated, among other things, more than 2,000 kilograms of rosewood – a figure that represents only a tiny fraction of seizures reported by the Post this ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/numbers-don%E2%80%99t-add
Three Cambodians Killed Illegally Logging Across Thai Border
Thai forestry officials killed three Cambodians who were illegally logging on Tuesday, in what they said was a shootout in Thailand’s Sisaket province, a border official said Wednesday. The latest deaths bring the number of Cambodians who have been shot while logging across the border this ...
Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/three-cambodians-killed-illegally-logging-across-thai-border-47532/
ELC in Nature Preserve Is Illegal, Government Spokesman Says
An “unofficial” land concession granted earlier this year to an agro-industry firm that has logged luxury hardwood in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary is in violation of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 moratorium on new economic land concessions (ELCs), a government spokesman said Tuesday. Phay Siphan, ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Woods
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/elc-in-nature-preserve-is-illegal-government-spokesman-says-47379/
កសិករ ៧ នាក់បានរងរបួសដោយសារជាន់មីន នៅភាគពាយ័ព្យ នៃប្រទេសកម្ពុជា
យោងតាមអភិបាលខេត្ត ស ថាវី បានអោយដឹងថាមានមនុស្ស ៧នាក់បានរងរបួសកាលពីព្រឹកថ្ងៃពុធ ដោយសារពូកគាត់បានជាន់មីន ខណៈកំពុងដើរទៅវាលស្រែ នៅឯអតីតកន្លែងសមរភូមិ ក្នុងស្រុកអន្លង់វែង នៃខេត្ត ឧត្តរមានជ័យ។ ...
បុគ្គលិក Global Times News
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/826415.shtml#.Uo1lUsRgd8E
Report calls out Pheap
Logging tycoon Try Pheap’s rapidly expanding land empire, criticised by rights groups for displacing families and encroaching on protected forest areas, has grown to almost 70,000 hectares in size and is helping to facilitate a cross-border illegal logging operation, a report released today alleges. The Cambodian ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/report-calls-out-pheap
Dam channel’s classification hotly debated
As Laos pushes toward its goal of becoming the “battery of Asia” through hydropower, its newfound claim that the location for the proposed Don Sahong dam is not on the Mekong River’s main stream is provoking incredulity from some observers. Less than two kilometres north of ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/dam-channel%E2%80%99s-classification-hotly-debated
Weapons cache found
A cache of 130 AK-47 rifles, ammunition and two unexploded rockets have been found by a group of children in the Oral mountain range, Kampong Chhnang police officials said yesterday. Khem Vibol, police chief at Teuk Phos district, where the weapons were reported to the authorities, ...
Kim Sarom
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/weapons-cache-found
Preah Vihear Residents Protest Future Eviction
Fifty-three families in Preah Vihear province’s Kulen district on Sunday protested outside the headquarters of a Malaysian company that is threatening to clear villagers’ farmland to make way for a rubber plantation, rights groups and officials said Monday. The families, who live in Srayong commune’s Srayong ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/preah-vihear-residents-protest-future-eviction-47273/
Cambodian Villagers Demand Land Activist’s Release Ahead of Appeal
More than 200 villagers involved in three different land disputes gathered in front of Cambodia’s top court in the capital Tuesday to demand the release of jailed rights campaigner Yorm Bopha ahead of her final appeal against a criminal conviction later this week. Yorm Bopha’s impending ...
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/appeal-11192013183435.html
Phnom Penh’s 5 New Districts Create Fears of Gerrymandering
Phnom Penh City Hall’s plans to undertake the largest redrawing of the city’s administrative boundaries in decades, by creating five new districts before May’s district and city-level council elections, is likely an effort to gerrymander voting constituencies, a senior opposition party member said Monday. Municipal government ...
Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/phnom-penhs-5-new-districts-create-fears-of-gerrymandering-47269/
Loss of Forest in Cambodia Among Worst in the World
Cambodia lost more than 7 percent of its forest cover over the past 12 years—the fifth fastest rate in the world—according to a new study of global forest cover change that sharply contradicts the government’s own rosier figures. Published Friday in the journal Science and led ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/loss-of-forest-in-cambodia-among-worst-in-the-world-47259/
Vietnam Doubts Sustainability of Second Lao Dam Project on Mekong
Vietnam has joined Cambodia in questioning the sustainability of the planned Don Sahong dam project on the Mekong River in southern Laos, saying more environmental impact studies are needed before the scheme moves forward. Le Duc Trung, director general of the Vietnam National Mekong Committee under ...
Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dam-11152013181814.html
Study calls for halt to dams
A new study and accompanying short film released yesterday call for all lower Mekong dam developers to halt plans until further impact studies can be made. Hydropower dams will have a greater impact on river flows than even climate change, according to research by the University ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/study-calls-halt-dams
River-widening project to displace 600 families
More than 600 families living along the Siem Reap riverside are to be relocated at the beginning of next year by the government, a top provincial official said yesterday. The families will be evicted as part of a provincial government plan to widen the river to ...
Thik Kaliyann
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/river-widening-project-displace-600-families