Environment and natural resources
Environmental and biodiversity protection
Jobs in green economy in hot demand as S’pore looks to become carbon services hub
As Singapore looks to establish itself as a carbon services and trading hub, jobs in the green economy to help businesses decarbonise and implement their net-zero strategies are now in hot demand. Firms looking to hire foreigners for certain roles in this sector will find it ...
Cheryl Tan
‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
The controversial whistleblower who helped expose corruption in Thailand’s parks department has gained a major promotion — and increased scrutiny of his own checkered history, which includes two murder charges, a corruption investigation, and multiple allegations of human rights abuses. Senior forest officer Chaiwat Limlikit-aksorn arrived ...
Kannikar Petchkaew
Cambodia’s Mekong dolphin is dying despite efforts to save it
The fishing gangs visit the river at night and the rangers do nothing to stop them. Working in large groups, the boatmen use fishing methods that have long been outlawed in this part of the mighty Mekong River like gillnetting, which uses nets that hang like ...
Saqib Rahim
Cambodian plan to allow hunting in protected areas worries conservationists
Hunting in Cambodia’s protected areas and forests would be legal in some cases under a proposal from the country’s Ministry of Environment that conservation groups fear could lead to abuses that threaten wildlife populations, according to drafts of rule changes seen by RFA. The ministry is ...
Jack Adamović Davies
Ecotourism Community Builds Mangrove Walkway
Teuk Chob Khnar Por ecotourism community in Seam Reap is building a kilometer-long wooden walkway across the mangrove forest to boost tourism but is short of funds and manpower. The area in Khnar Por commune has freshwater mangrove trees growing on 98 hectares out of 1,022 ...
Po Sophea
Conservationists look for ‘divine intervention’ from forest development
A two-lane dirt road truncates the northeastern tree line of Phnom Tamao Forest, marking the start of a housing complex on private land bordering the protected area. Dozens of boundary markers cemented underneath the tree canopies of the forest indicate the plans for land exchange deals ...
ANTON L. DELGADO
Cambodia, VN, Laos to up wildlife crime fight
Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos have agreed to take concrete action and apply more effective measures against wildlife law offenders, and have committed to treating wildlife offences as serious crimes, although the number of cases referred to court in the three countries remains low. On June 2-3, ...
Mom Kunthear and Ry Sochan
Baby elephant, a big bundle of joy and conservation challenges
ee Pael, one of Cambodia’s few captive female elephants, lived a peaceful life in a forest sanctuary until the day a wild bull appeared, chased away her handler and ran off with Gee Pael. “I had to run up a tree,” recalled Yel Yan, the elephant’s ...
JACK BROOK
Opinion: Floodplain wetlands of the Mekong – going, going, gone?
A rapid and irreversible change is taking place in the Lower Mekong basin. Floodplain grasslands and freshwater wetlands are being lost – bustling ecosystems that once supported thriving communities of large mammals and birds. These include the spectacular sarus crane; the greater adjutant, one of ...
Ding Li Yong, Khwankhao Sinhaseni
Thai authorities demolish resorts in parks, but struggle to prosecute encroachers
Since October 2020, Thailand’s national parks authority has demolished or ordered the demolition of more than 20 luxury mansions, resorts and tourist hotels illegally built in national parks throughout the country’s Western Forest Complex, a globally significant biodiversity conservation corridor. Among the properties already demolished are ...
Kannikar Petchkaew