News

A biodiversity team from Conservation International Cambodia (CI Cambodia) is surveying and identifying birds in the Central Cardamom Mountains National Park, while wildlife research teams from the Ministry of Environment and World Wide Fund for Nature Cambodia (WWF Cambodia) – with participation from members of ...

The Pursat provincial Military Police, in cooperation with provincial environmental officers, on Saturday confiscated a total of 150 Reach Kol timber logs, which had been hidden near the Cardamom Mountains in Rovieng village in Phnom Kravanh district’s Samrong commune. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries on Monday signed off on a list of seven measures intended to guard against forest fires, although details on implementation remained scarce yesterday and observers said they expected little to come of the new document. ...

Legal timber exports to Vietnam – the bulk of them rosewood – soared between 2013 and 2015, with the volume of logs exported increasing by a factor of 142 and seven times as much sawn wood passing across the border, according to a report by ...

Six prominent conservation groups yesterday vowed to help a military police task force fight illegal logging near the eastern border yesterday. However, scepticism persists that the highly publicised operation, which has resulted in few arrests, is merely for show. ...

With security footage of elephants, clouded leopards and other wildlife caught on hidden cameras in Cambodia’s Eastern Plains flashing on a TV screen, Toby Eastoe of Conservation International noted that their cameras also catch other activity. Presenters ranging from anti-corruption advocates to health service workers ...

Sheltering under a blue tarpaulin amid dense woodland in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains, Nhean* sits and waits for night to fall after a long day scouring the protected forest for luxury timber. He says he works for a broker who is a supplier to one of Cambodia’s ...

In the predawn hours of May 6, a flatbed truck packed with lengths of illegally logged timber sped past a checkpoint in Ratanakkiri province, knocking aside a police car and racing off. Police later tracked down the truck to a house in Banlung City. In the ...

A Pursat man’s reported encounter with a tiger in the Cardamom Mountains has left him injured and in fear, but it has left experts in doubt. On Sunday afternoon, Ngem Nget, a 51-year-old farmer in Phnom Kravanh district’s Santre commune, walked into the woods to forage ...

Two major conservation groups yesterday said that the proposed Stung Cheay Areng dam in Koh Kong province should be scrapped, while protesters who have blocked developer Sinohydro Group from entering the site for several days headed to Phnom Penh to voice their concerns and discontent. Conservation ...

In anticipation of a regional summit this weekend, government officials and civil society have their sights locked on a controversial hydropower development just across the Cambodian border in Laos. NGO Forum submitted an open letter yesterday urging Prime Minister Hun Sen to confront Laos about its ...

As villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley continue to block Sinohydro Corp employees from entering the area where the Stung Cheay Areng dam is planned, conservationists and rights workers have spoken of the havoc it will wreak if it goes ahead. In terms of the ...

Seven Chinese nationals were prevented from entering the Areng Valley in Koh Kong province yesterday as locals continued their standoff with the operator of the Stung Cheay Areng dam concession, villagers at the scene said. Ven Vorn, a community leader among those blocking a road used ...

NGOS have accused logging tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import-Export Company – which had a licence to clear forest during the construction of the Stung Atai hydropower dam in Pursat – of continuing to log the area despite the dam being finished. Ouch Leng, director of the ...

SAMBOR DISTRICT, Kratie Province – A sharply dressed usher in a crisp black shirt, black pants and a shiny black tie escorted guests to one of several bungalow-style, private booths at the Mloub Dong restaurant on a recent evening. While the privacy the restaurant offers is ...

As Laos pushes toward its goal of becoming the “battery of Asia” through hydropower, its newfound claim that the location for the proposed Don Sahong dam is not on the Mekong River’s main stream is provoking incredulity from some observers. Less than two kilometres north of ...

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 ...

Yong Yim’s voice rises to a high-pitched quiver when she talks about a planned dam in the Areng Valley that would inundate land her family has inhabited for hundreds of years to form what amounts to a giant battery. Now they are staring at ...

China’s demand for natural resources is being felt in a big way in Cambodia. Illegal logging and economic land concessions are threatening Cambodia’s dwindling forests, which now echo the sound of chainsaws. Prey Lang forest — an eight-hour journey north and east of the capital, Phnom Penh ...

Cambodia has decided to go ahead with the construction of a dam on a Mekong tributary, but conservation groups are concerned that not enough study has been done on the hydropower project’s environmental consequences. Construction on the 400 megawatt Lower Sesan 2 dam in northwestern Cambodia’s ...

Dr. Tim Killeen, author of The Cardamom Conundrum, Reconciling Development and Conservation in the Kingdom of Cambodia, discusses his recently released book, which argues that Cambodia is well positioned to reap the benefits of ‘green development’. Why did you select the Cardamom Mountains as the area ...

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 ...

Illegal logging of staggering proportions abetted by military personnel is decimating stocks of luxury rosewood in the Central Cardamom Protected Forest, while the conversation group tasked with protecting the area and its government counterparts deny the trade is even happening. In a period of several hours ...

During the past four years, Cambodia has seen drastic decreases in rare species of trees due to illegal logging, community research from the National Resource Protection Group indicates. If continued unabated, illegal logging threatens to wholly deplete Cambodia’s rare tree species, Chut Wutty said. Cambodia’s ...