Land

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Vietnamese rubber firm Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) has failed to keep its commitments to address human rights and environmental abuses at its plantations in Cambodia, Global Witness said in a statement yesterday. In May, the London-based NGO published an investigation into two Vietnamese rubber companies ...

Twelve representatives of 50 families in Preah Vihear’s Kulen district are seeking aid from a rights group after being summonsed to court last week over a land dispute with a Malaysian company. The villagers gathered in Adhoc’s provincial office in Srayong commune yesterday to draft and ...

Environmental campaign group Global Witness on Thursday called on the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Deutsche Bank to divest immediately from a Vietnamese firm whose rubber plantations in Cambodia are accused of rampant illegal logging and forced evictions of indigenous communities. The call came exactly six ...

Cambodia’s Koh Russey Resort development project is aiming to attract large foreign investment by exhibiting in Hong Kong. The resort will showcase its properties and facilities at an exhibition from November 29 until December 1, according to the real estate company CBRE. Expert staff of all departments ...

Kompong Cham provincial governor Lun Lim Thai on Tuesday ordered authorities to step up long-running efforts to reduce the smuggling of unprocessed rubber resin from the province into Vietnam. Those smuggling resin to processors across the border should be more actively pursued and instead forced to ...

Laos is pushing ahead with construction of a second dam on the Mekong River despite objections from environmental and civil society groups. Work on the main part of the Don Sahong hydropower dam near the Cambodian border in southern Laos will begin by the end of ...

An environmental group has hit out at the Lao government for organising a tour of the proposed Don Sahong hydropower dam site, saying it should not be trying to “sell” a project that has not been regionally approved. Other NGOs have also warned of the ...

Three males attempting to smuggle luxury wood on Saturday evening were thwarted by authorities in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district, provincial forestry officials confirmed yesterday. The suspects now being detained at the provincial police station are Vor Vanser, 16, Le Fy, 16, and Cheurng Vanseurn, 18. ...

Mangrove forests along Cambodia’s coast in Kampot support more than 100,000 families and create a diverse ecosystem that is home to hundreds of unique species. But coastal development projects, coupled with locals’ reliance on the forest for their livelihoods, threaten to decimate more than 1,000 hectares ...

Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor said Monday that he would seek an investigation into a $1.5-million haul of river sand exported to India in April in spite of a ban on the export of dredged sand handed down by Prime Minister ...

Cambodia should have sovereignty over disputed land around the Preah Vihear temple on the border with Thailand, the UN’s highest court has ruled. The International Court of Justice in the Hague said Thailand must withdraw any soldiers from the area. Cambodia sought a clarification of the ...

Koh Kong Sugar has offered to settle its yearslong dispute with Cambodian families who accuse its plantations of stealing their land, but the farmers remain wary of being able to secure a fair deal. The firm, a subsidiary of Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL), ...

Laos is taking steps to convince neighboring countries of the merits of the planned Don Sahong hydropower project over Mekong River. Lao government officials organized a site visit on Sunday and Monday so that interested parties could see the site first-hand and get a sense of ...

Declaring that it has “zero tolerance” towards land grabbing, Coca-Cola has agreed to investigate a long running case in Cambodia where villagers are seeking court action against a company accused of seizing their land to make way for plantations linked to the supply of sugar ...

Fauna and Flora International says its has found three previously unknown populations of the endangered Indochinese hog deer in Cambodia. “This is a remarkable discovery given not only the species’ vulnerability to hunting, but also because all of the sites were outside the existing protected area ...

Cambodia has recorded some 973 white-shoulder ibis in its wild, making the country the stronghold for this critically endangered species, the conservationists group said Thursday. BirdLife International and its partners including Cambodian Forestry Administration, People Resources and Conservation Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society and Worldwide Fund for ...

Cambodia has seen a 46 percent rise in dry rubber export in the first ten months of 2013 thanks to rising global demand, said the report of the Commerce Ministry on Friday. The country exported 62,915 tons of dry rubber during the January-October period this year, ...

Earlier this week, Prime Minister Hun Sen called for urgent fortification of Cambodia’s resistance to climate change, singling out recent flooding as evidence of the severe consequences the country faces. But at a press conference yesterday, opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua accused the Prime Minister of weakening ...

Defence lawyers representing well-known businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary, also known as the “Crocodile Grandma”, requested the Court of Appeal to consider voiding the tycoon’s warrant for arrest yesterday. Sokountheary was convicted for encroaching on public land and sentenced in absentia to four years and six months in ...

A huge haul of river sand dredged in Cambodia has been quarantined at the southern Indian port city of Cochin since its arrival in April despite a ban on sand exports instituted by Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2009. India’s Deccan Chronicle news­paper reported on Tuesday ...