Environment and natural resources

The economic impact of climate change in Cambodia could be highly damaging to rural areas and worker productivity, according to a report from American development agency USAID, which applied climate projections for 2050 to today’s Mekong Basin economies. ...

Referring to Cambodia as “my country”, Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, a vocal environmental activist and Spanish national who was deported Monday, yesterday vowed to return and continue his struggle to save the Areng Valley. ...

Falling crop yields, damage to infrastructure and heat-related illnesses brought on by climate change could cost the four Southeast Asian countries of the lower Mekong River basin $34 billion per year, researchers say. A report released on Monday found that climate change could cost Cambodia, ...

An immigration official said Sunday that his department would wait for orders before moving to deport environmental activist Alex Gonzalez-Davidson, whose visa the government refused to renew after it expired Friday. ...

Thailand’s army has asked Cambodia “not to jump [to] the conclusion” that its soldiers were to blame for the deaths of three Cambodian loggers who were shot dead earlier this month while searching for rosewood across the border, according to Thai media. ...

The Ministry of Interior on Wednesday said it was standing by its decision to not renew the visa of outspoken environmental activist Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson in the face of mounting pressure from fellow activists, NGOs, unions, students and monks—even opposition leader Sam Rainsy—to reverse course. ...

An excavator operator clearing a patch of land in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district had a surprise run-in on Friday with six pythons, which broke cover as his machine moved onto their wetland habitat, according to a local official. ...

A group of university students from Phnom Penh opposed to a proposed hydropower dam in Koh Kong province entered the project’s construction site on Sunday for a 10-day study aiming to highlight the area’s alternative potential for ecotourism. ...

After Thai soldiers last week shot and killed three Cambodians who entered Thailand to log luxury-grade rosewood, a district governor in Preah Vihear province thought it would be an appropriate time to warn locals of the dangers of crossing the border. ...

More than a dozen opposition party officials have accused Thailand of encouraging extrajudicial killings of Cambodians along the border. In a strongly worded letter sent to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, the Cambodia National Rescue Party MPs asked for an independent investigation into an ...

More than a dozen opposition party officials have accused Thailand of encouraging extrajudicial killings of Cambodians along the border. In a strongly worded letter sent to Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha on Monday, the Cambodia National Rescue Party MPs asked for an independent investigation into an ...

Thai soldiers shot and killed three Cambodian loggers and seriously injured a fourth last week after the group illegally crossed into Thailand from Preah Vihear province in search of valuable timber, officials said Wednesday. ...

The government’s apparent unwillingness to take seriously evidence of continued large-scale illegal logging orchestrated by the Try Pheap Group is “disappointing”, Global Witness said yesterday. A report released last week by the UK-based group titled The Cost of Luxury detailed evidence, collected during an eight-month covert ...

Four Vietnamese nationals were charged on Tuesday with illegally collecting first-grade logs from the forest after they were arrested while transporting the wood from Mondolkiri province’s border-hugging Koh Nhek district to Vietnam. ...

Minister of Agriculture Ouk Rabun yesterday dismissed allegations of large-scale illegal timber smuggling by the Try Pheap Group published in a report by UK-based corruption monitor Global Witness last week. Global Witness’s report, The Cost of Luxury, identified Pheap, a prominent tycoon and former adviser to ...

A recently elected village chief in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, who was forced into another election by his rival, was arrested on Wednesday during the second poll. ...

In a new report, U.K. environmental rights group Global Witness places Cambodian timber magnate Try Pheap at the heart of a vast illegal logging operation driving the country’s rarest tree species to the brink of extinction with the collusion of government and military officials. “The Cost ...

Korea Forest Service (KFS) has been working to promote overseas partnership with Southeast Asia countries by aiming to expand afforestation by 1 million hectares by 2050 from 314,000 hectares in 2013. It established relations with Indonesia to collaborate in planting trees on 700,000 hectares, and ...

Representatives of communities across the country who have had their lives upturned by development projects yesterday called on the government to rescind the economic land concessions at the centre of their disputes. ...

Representatives of communities across the country who have had their lives upturned by development projects yesterday called on the government to rescind the economic land concessions at the centre of their disputes. ...

As Vietnam and Laos negotiate to enter a European Union trade agreement aimed at improving forestry governance, the EU – one of the world’s top timber importers – is urging Cambodia to join the scheme. ...

More than 100 cubic metres of luxury timber were found inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary near a Vietnamese-owned economic land concession on Saturday in Ratanakkiri province, according to Adhoc and a local resident, who suspect the timber was taken out of the protected area. Nearly ...

A recently approved road project leading to the border with Vietnam in Mondulkiri would do irreversible damage to the province’s protected forest and threaten future attempts to reintroduce tigers to the Kingdom, according to the World Wildlife Fund. ...

Environment Ministry officials on Thursday found a cache of more than 400 pieces of illegally logged first-grade wood in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which the ministry oversees, and suspect officers from a nearby military police base of being involved. Thin Ngoal, the sanctuary’s deputy director, ...