Environment and natural resources

Irregularities have been found in the Mondulkiri provincial administration over clearing state land to make way for timber smuggling to Vietnam. An investigation has been launched to find the officers responsible. ...

Police in Kratie province were caught on video letting potentially illegal timber transporters pass through their checkpoints on Monday night, with provincial police yesterday suggesting they were powerless to crack down on such shipments as many transporters possessed axes and machetes and were addicted to ...

The last families refusing to relocate from their homes near the Lower Sesan II dam have accused local authorities of being unwilling to settle their case. ...

The Goldman Environmental Prize winner Ouch Leng, president of the Cambodian Human Rights Task Force, has been awarded the Asia Game Changer Award for 2017 from the Asia Society. Mr Leng will go to collect the award in New York on November 1 with eight ...

Government officials and environmental groups yesterday celebrated the discovery of 121 lesser adjutant stork nests in Preah Vihear province, chalking the success up to a joint programme to hire locals to guard the nests. Environment Ministry rangers and Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) workers started counting ...

Thai soldiers arrested seven Cambodians on Friday who crossed into Thailand from Pailin province while logging illegally.​ Chhun Chheuy, acting police chief of Pailin town, which borders with Chanthaburi province’s Pong Nam Ron district, said the group was made up of Cambodians from multiple provinces. ...

Illegal logging within the Prey Lang protected forest decreased significantly year-on-year over a six-month period ending in February, collected data show, though forest-clearing in the area remains rampant. ...

A river bird that was once a common sight along the Mekong River is now down to a population of just 50 to 60 individuals due to human interference and dam construction, conservationists and Environment Ministry officials said yesterday. ...

A task force made up of Preah Vihear provincial and district officials is set to begin a five-day investigation today into a slew of sawmills thought to be illegally milling and transporting timber from the protected Preah Roka forest after villagers and NGOs accused local ...

Families refusing to relocate from their homes near the Lower Sesan II dam have said they will all leave if they can establish a new village on their community forest and ancestral lands. ...

The Environment Ministry is to request the creation of six new protected areas to safeguard biodiversity and boost conservation in the country. Tim Sitha, deputy director of the general department of conservation, said the ministry has been studying the potential to establish the new areas.  ...

Villagers and NGOs have accused local authorities, including forestry and environmental officials, of accepting bribes from illegal loggers in exchange for unfettered logging expeditions in Preah Vihear province’s Preah Roka protected forest. ...

The last families refusing to relocate from two communes near the Lower Sesan II dam are considering asking the authorities to establish a new village on ancestral lands close to their original homes as flood waters in the area continue to rise. ...

Prey Veng province military police and the Wildlife Alliance on Friday night conducted a raid upon a truck transporting hundreds of kilograms of illegal wildlife destined for Vietnam. ...

Nearly 3,000 cases have been detected in a crackdown on fisheries and forest crime in the first nine months of this year.​ The results were in a Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery report published on Friday. ...

The Ministry of Environment is asking Japan for help mapping Cambodia’s forests using satellite imagery, one week after it vehemently refuted a report of such imagery showing accelerating forest loss in the Kingdom. ...

Six Vietnamese nationals were arrested on Wednesday afternoon in a Military Police raid that saw 30 officers confiscating at least 100 illegally felled trees and 10 logging vehicles from an economic land concession in Kratie province’s Snuol district near the border with Vietnam. ...

The Ministry of Environment released a statement late Tuesday night vehemently refuting University of Maryland data that showed a 30 percent spike in forest cover loss in 2016 over the year before, pointing instead to its own data showing only minimal deforestation over the same ...

The new data, released by the University of Maryland, tracks forest cover loss globally using satellite imagery. Results showed that not only was 2016 worse than 2015, but of the 16 years for which deforestation was recorded, last year was the fourth worst – with ...

Ratanakkiri province police seized 285 logs of first-grade timber in a raid at a cashew farm in a remote area of the province yesterday, although no loggers were arrested. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries yesterday announced the establishment of two community forest areas over 4,500 hectares in Kampong Thom province’s Santuk district. ...

Fifty endangered sarus cranes have hatched from 27 nests protected by conservationists and villagers in Cambodia’s Northern Plains, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). The nests are in Kulen Promtep and Chhep wildlife sanctuaries. ...

The Global Center for Mekong Studies (GCMS) comprises six leading regional “think tanks”: the China Institute for International Studies (CIIS); the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP); the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam (DAV); the Laos Institute of Foreign Affairs (IFA); the Myanmar Institute of ...

Police raided a warehouse in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district on Friday, seizing tonnes of illegal luxury timber after the owner fled.​ ...