News

Prime Minister Hun Sen will personally deliver land titles to residents in Kratie province’s Snuol district on September 21 following the completion of the land measuring mission by volunteer youth there.   According to the premier’s order, land titles have been granted in three forms of ...

Kampong Chhnang authorities had sacked the Teuk Phos district governor and police chief after subordinate officers accused them of conspiring to sell almost 300 hectares of state-owned forest land to a private company, provincial officials said yesterday. According to a Kampong Chhnang official who declined to ...

The Kampong Thom Provincial Court yesterday charged a man with clearing state-owned forestland after he was arrested on Monday along with 13 other villagers, according to provincial prosecutor Ben Sarath. Heoun Sokha was arrested in Kraya commune’s Santuk district after he was found by police clearing ...

After a day sewing, treating fabrics and ironing, workers steam out of the Maurea Garment Factory in a suburb of Phnom Penh. Unilke some other factories, this one doesn’t have to deal with work slowdowns due to electricity outages of high monthly energy bills since ...

A district governor and two fisheries officials are among 10 people who will be questioned at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court next week over the destruction of flooded forest to make way for dry-season rice fields in Kampong Thom province, an official said yesterday. On July 27, ...

Cambodia expects to gain money from carbon credit next year and it will take their money to develop forest community to support sustainable development, officials said this week. An environmental officials said: Cambodia will likely get money from carbon credit through selling carbon credit to foreign ...

Villagers who claim their patrols last week uncovered criminal activity in Prey Lang forest presented the government yesterday with a list of 15 people they say are illegally logging in the area. Reoun Sopheap, a representative of about 100 villagers from Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district, ...

Authorities in Kampong Thom province have made good on their promise to examine evidence of illegal logging unearthed by community investigators in the greater Prey Lang area, summoning seven representatives yesterday to present their findings. The Prey Lang Community Network representatives were summoned to Sandan district ...

Villagers who have spent recent days patrolling Prey Lang forest would file a complaint to the prime minister alleging government officials and private companies are clearing parts of the forest, a spokesman said yesterday. The 70-strong citizen patrol team who scoured the forest this week ...

After a brief détente, a fight over the Prey Trolach community forest in Battambang province that has its citizen guardians and the Forestry Administration pitted against the military is back on, those working to protect the area from illegal logging said yesterday. Since it was deemed ...

Community activists patrolling the Prey Lang forest for a second day yesterday claimed to have found more evidence of illegal logging – in the form of hundreds of cubic metres of timber and several hectares of cleared land. Prey Lang network representative Hoeun Sopheap said villagers ...

Banteay Ampil district, Oddar Meanchey province – The families of Beng commune have new neighbors: a battalion of Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) soldiers building a military base inside one of 13 pockets across the province aiming to be the first forest-based carbon trading scheme ...

Two more people in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district have been arrested in conjunction with what local authorities are calling a secessionist plot, while provincial authorities threatened to demolish more homes if residents do not leave a disputed area, officials said yesterday. Deputy provincial court prosecutor ...

After years of futile protests demanding their land back, villagers forcibly evicted by sugarcane plantations connected to CPP Senator Ly Yong Phat launched a boycott campaign yesterday targeting the international firms that sell his sugar. Thousands of families accuse the senator’s plantations of forcing them off ...

Members of the Prey Long Forest Network yesterday said they are planning to hold a citizens’ patrol to look for evidence of illegal logging in Kompong Thom province this weekend. The patrol would be the first such patrol in the country since the April 26 murder ...

Hundreds of would-be illegal loggers have been stopped this year by provincial authorities in Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey and Banteay Meanchey who have stopped them from crossing the border into Thailand, where Thai soldiers have killed 17 Cambodians so far this year. In Preah Vihear alone, ...

The “company” that military police have declined to identify but said sent staff to confront activist Chut Wutty shortly before he was shot last Thursday is Timbergreen, a firm the slain activist had attempted to expose for illegal logging. Documents obtained by the Post yesterday and sources have ...

Amid mounting calls for further investigation, officials said yesterday they were establishing a task force to look into the death of outspoken forestry activist Chut Wutty, while the family of the military police officer who allegedly killed Chut Wutty before turning the gun on himself ...

The military police officer who killed well-known anti-logging campaigner Chut Wutty, 46, on Thursday in Koh Kong province then died by his own hand after turning his AK-47 assault rifle on himself in an apparent act of instant suicide following the slaying of the forestry ...

The government needs to enforce legislation on protecting the environment, even as it gives away masses of land and resources in concessions, or risk jeopardising its economic future, the UN assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction said yesterday. “The most critical impact of disasters today is ...

With his slaying yesterday in the jungles of Koh Kong province, Chut Wutty becomes one of the highest-profile members yet on a dark list of Cambodian activists who have been killed for making a stand against greed and corruption. Although the details of his death remain ...

The wife of slain environmental activist Chut Wutty today rejected early police accounts of the circumstances around his shooting death, saying she believed he had been targeted for death for his work in protecting Cambodia’s endangered forests. Speaking to the Post by phone, 40-year-old Sam Chanthy, ...

Cambodia’s most outspoken activist against illegal logging was shot dead today while escorting journalists near a protected forest in Koh Kong province, where he has repeatedly attempted to expose illegal logging rackets that include military officials. Chut Wutty, the director of Natural Resource Protection Group, was ...

Rangers paid by an internationally funded conservation organisation have been directly profiting for years from the very trade they are supposed to be preventing in southwest Cambodia, documents obtained by the Post allege. Former Conservation International (CI) staff members say when they spoke up about endemic ...