Deforestation drivers

It takes particularly cynical government officials to use the world’s focus on tackling COVID-19 to accelerate illegal logging of protected forests; simultaneously lining the pockets of business elites, attacking environmental activists, and sabotaging its own ability to fight the climate emergency. Yet this is exactly ...

With the illegal timber extraction rampant during coronavirus pandemic period in Sagaing Region, authorities are exerting greatest efforts and thus over 5,000 tonnes of illegal timbers were seized from October to April in this fiscal year 2019-2020, according to the Sagaing Region Forest Department. During the ...

A recent report by the Regional Community Forestry Training Centre (RECOFTC) said villagers living around Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary had recently reported illegal loggers in the forest and they took action by seizing some of the perpetrators’ chainsaws. The area is protected by the government and the ...

The Wildlife Alliance yesterday discovered over 200 hectares of mangrove forests within Koh Kong province’s Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary were illegally cleared. In a press release obtained yesterday, the wildlife and forest conservation NGO said the discovery of the forestry crime was made following a routine ...

A Cambodian conservation group has warned that logging in the protected Prey Lang forest has ramped up during the coronavirus pandemic, vowing it would continue to monitor the destruction despite government threats of legal action to stop that work. Members of the Prey Lang Community Network ...

While attention is focused on the coronavirus pandemic, we must also be alert to another fast-spreading hazard claiming lives — wildfires. Several people died this year fighting fires in northern Thailand. Now, hundreds of fires are burning there, in Laos and Myanmar. We expect more fires ...

More than 100,000 hectares of forests in Luang Namtha province were destroyed by bushfires that raged for more than a month, officials have said. The Director of the Agriculture and Forestry Department of Luang Namtha, Mr Phimkeo Thamlasing, told Vientiane Times on Tuesday that the fires spread from ...

Three large tracts of woodland — about 45 rai altogether — were found to have been encroached on inside the Mae Sot National Forest Reserve in Phop Phra district, according to a local media report. The encroachment was reported to the 6th Forest Protection Unit in ...

US ambassador to Cambodia Patrick Murphy and the Greening Prey Lang project discussed conservation technology being used in Cambodia to preserve natural resources. The USAID-funded Greening Prey Lang is a project that promotes resilient, low-emissions development and inclusive and sustainable management of the Prey Lang forest. In ...

While the world’s attention has been focused on the Covid-19 pandemic, northern Thailand has been experiencing the worst forest fires in decades. Already raging since mid-March, the fires are projected to continue well into May. With the news of the pandemic dominating international media, the choking ...