ព័ត៌មាន​

Nearly a tonne of rosewood was uncovered in a raid yesterday in Kampong Speu in which the suspect successfully fled after injuring an officer, police officials said. “According to the quality assessment, I can say a rough value of that rosewood is $300,000,” he [Keo ...

Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday. The move comes after a number of ...

Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm. Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav ...

The military’s ongoing clearing of community forests in Oddar Meanchey province risks derailing Cambodia’s first forest-based carbon trading scheme backed by the U.N., according to the latest assessment of the project. Community forest groups, who stand to earn millions from the project, said on Wednesday that ...

Cambodia has lost almost a quarter of its forests in the past 40 years due to rapid development and China’s demand for timber, according to a new report released yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on the Greater Mekong Region. Looking at five countries in ...

When activists Mom Sakin and Sorn Siyan took a stand against illegal logging in Kratie province last month, they were allegedly threatened with violence and lawsuits from officials. “Powerful people who wanted to intimidate us shot their guns into the air to prevent us from going ...

Illegal border movements, illegal logging, drug trafficking, illegal fishing and unofficial cross border trade are among the issues being confronted by Laos and Cambodia along their shared border at the moment. The report was made during a meeting held between Champassak provincial authorities from Laos and ...

Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. “The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but ...

More than 40 hectares of protected forest in Rattanakiri’s O’Yadav district was razed by a Vietnamese company over the course of six days before they were stopped yesterday by villagers and investigators from rights group Adhoc, a local official said. Sav Hlin, a village chief in ...

A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 ...

Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. [Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood ...

More than 10,000 families have poured into an area of Prey Lang forest in Kampong Thom province since January, clearing 20,000 hectares of trees to sell as luxury timber and building houses, Prey Lang Community Network members claimed yesterday. Many are believed to be from ...

Two anti-logging activists who went into hiding yesterday have alleged that they received death threats from police because they set fire to logs cut from a protected area in Kratie province. The activists have been leading an increasingly confrontational campaign against Vietnamese firm Binh Phuoc Kratie ...

Community forest patrollers in Oddar Meanchey’s Samrong district say they were forced to return saws and timber they seized from illegal loggers after soldiers detained and threatened them on Sunday. The 27-member patrol, funded by development NGO Pact as part of the REDD+ carbon credit program, ...

The road to Srekor I village in Stung Treng province’s Sesan district is a bumpy one. The small discomfort caused by being jolted about on a motorcycle or being thrown around in a car, however, is offset by the striking scenery that surrounds a traveller ...

A community forest patrol group trying to fight the destruction of protected forest in Kratie province’s Snuol district have, for the second time in two weeks, seized equipment from those they accuse of illegal logging. About 100 people from Svay Chreah, Snuol, Sre Cha, Pi Thnou ...

‘I heard a f—ing crazy dog say that we can’t dock in Kampong Saom, but we definitely can do that,” a crackling voice declares boisterously. The speaker, captured in video obtained by the Post, is part of an illegal timber syndicate. The identity of the speaker ...

Lawmakers from the European Union (E.U) are again urging the block’s trade commissioner to investigate Cambodia’s Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) over a raft of alleged rights abuses and consider revoking the duty free access their owners currently enjoy to member states. Going mostly to industrial ...

Police have cracked down on illegal large-scale rosewood smuggling at the Cambodia-Thai border in the district of Malai. In the sting operation Tuesday night, led by Banteay Meanchey prosecutor, Phan Pirom, the authorities have seized around three tons of rosewood, hidden in the truck bed used ...

As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense. “Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are ...

Activists in Kratie province’s Snuol district seized seven chainsaws over the weekend and collected evidence that four police checkpoints were used to solicit bribes from illegal loggers, representatives of the network said yesterday. After scouring thousands of hectares of protected forest from Friday through yesterday, the ...

Faced with widespread evictions and opaque private sector deals, activists in Cambodia are calling on the government to be more open and transparent about land concessions, beef up mechanisms for resolving land disputes, and abide by the rule of law. It is estimated that ...

Siamese Rosewood, which is illegally logged and exported from Cambodia in large quantities, will be protected internally as a threatened species following a decision taken in Bangkok yesterday. A meeting of the 177 countries party to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild ...

Two men were arrested yesterday and more than 1 ton of rosewood was confiscated after the car they were using to transport the illegally logged luxury wood smashed through a police barricade in Kandal province, officials said. Deputy Kandal provincial police chief Sao Sothun said that ...