Introduction Land use in Laos has recently undergone significant change. While most members of the 50 recognized ethnic groups in Laos making up the Laos population have traditionally had a subsistence lifestyle, collected forest products, and cared for land through shifting (swidden) agriculture, government policies have ...

Cambodia flood, 2011. Photo by European Commission, taken on 11 October 2011. Licensed under CC BY 2.0Storms, flooding and lightning strikes are the major causes of death and property damage from natural disasters in Cambodia, while drought causes severe hardship, especially for farmers. In a ...

Myanmar is home to a rich array of natural resources, with various types of forests and biological diversities found throughout the country. Forests cover about 42.92% of the country’s land area, equivalent to 29 million hectares. 131 There are seven primary types of forest found ...

Flooded forest in Cambodia. Photo by Andrea Kirkby, taken 11 May 2014. Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.A 1993 royal decree designated 23 protected areas covering about 3,273,300 ha, equal to around 18% of the country’s total land area, and brought them under the jurisdiction of the Ministry ...

In October 2020, tropical storms LINFA and NANGKA struck Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand. The storms resulted in at least 48 fatalities, 15 missing people and more than 830,400 affected citizens, as reported by the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (the ...

Although there is currently no commercial-scale production of gold carried out in Cambodia, exploration by many companies is underway, with some promising find reported. Subject to government approval, commercial production could begin in 2016 or 2017. Gold is found in a number of ...

Public policies are a system of laws, regulatory measures, and plans of action implemented by the government to ensure that its functions are performed predictably and consistently.269 Policies typically outline the guiding principles of an operation; meanwhile, regulations set procedural expectations. Currently, there are no ...

Introduction Rivers and lakes are two types of surface water. In Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam (or the Lower Mekong Countries), the majority of surface water is organized into large river systems that network into streams, lakes, ponds and wetlands, and flow into deltas. It ...

Upon the reinstatement of the second monarchy in 1993, Cambodian citizens are the master of their destiny and sources of all power. With the introduction of the liberal democracy in the Kingdom, all Cambodians at their 18 years or over, except where it is prescribed ...

Nearly all of the ministries were established in 1995. A few ministries were only recently created in the post-2013 national election by a separation of one ministry into two. There are 28 government ministries and secretariats, and many national bodies. ...

Under the 2008 constitution drafted by the military, Myanmar is defined as a unitary parliamentary republic. Myanmar’s nominal head of state is Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Laureate. The Myanmar military, headed by Snr. General Min Aung Hlaing, still hold much authority over ...

The Cambodia Red Cross (CRC) is the principal humanitarian society in Cambodia. The government has designated it as an auxiliary to public bodies offering humanitarian assistance. In addition to the national headquarters, the CRC has 25 branches.21 CRC was founded in 1955 and has worked ...

Pandemics are disease epidemics that spread from person to person as a result of human-to-human transmission. Many medical texts do not define the term “pandemic”. However, some key characteristics of pandemics, including wide geographic spread, disease movement, novelty, severity, high attack rates and explosiveness, minimal ...

Cambodia’s sub-national administration consists of three tiers: capital city/province, municipality/district and sangkat/commune. Phnom Penh is the capital, and there are 24 provinces, 159 districts (including 26 municipalities and 12 khans), 1406 communes and 227 sangkats. ...

Two daughters look at their mother who is dying from HIV/AIDS, Cambodia. Photo by World Bank, taken in 2002. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Two common features mark Cambodia’s major health concerns:Some health figures are among the worst in the world – the 26 cases of ...

The Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia and the Land Law of 2001 both guarantee an individual’s right to property protection. Though part of the Government’s policy framework since 2002, not until 2010 did a legal framework exist to govern the process by which the ...

Myanmar is richly endowed with natural resources and is the world’s largest producer and exporter of jade. Myanmar extracts and processes its resources into a variety of forms and products, in addition to the primary export of jade, natural gas, and petroleum, coal, copper, gemstones, ...

Lao PDR is the most ethnically diverse country in Southeast Asia. Lao people comprise four main ethno-linguistic families: Lao-Tai (62.4 percent), Mon-Khmer (23.7 percent), Hmong-Iu Mien (9.7 percent), and Chine-Tibetan (2.9 percent)248, which are officially divided into 50 ethnic groups249 The 50 ethnic groups in ...

Cambodia’s national parks (or ‘natural parks’) and wildlife preserves were established under the 1993 Royal Decree on the Protection of Natural Areas. Although other areas have been added subsequently, there is currently no officially available list of all protected areas and their boundaries. ...