Forest cover
Deforestation drivers
Rights group asks for land data sharing
Rights group Licadho has called on the government to make available statistics on the full extent of economic land concessions in response to data collected by the organisation over five years. Keep reading ...
Report finds economic land concessions affected 17K families
Community representatives, civil society organisations and opposition members have urged the government for more urgent action to resolve land disputes following the release of annual data showing that all 24 provinces were affected in 2014, with hundreds of cases still unresolved. The call came at the launch ...
Lao officials fail to enforce government ban on timber exports
A recent ban on the export of raw logs imposed by the Lao government to increase the value of processed wood products is not being enforced in the country’s southern provinces because some national leaders are involved in timber smuggling, a civil society official with ...
Vietnamese rubber giant makes deal with Cambodian villagers
A “major breakthrough” has been reached in discussions between Vietnamese rubber giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai and 11 indigenous communities in Ratanakkiri province that have lost land and resources to the company’s plantations. During a three-day meeting with community representatives, NGOs and its own subsidiaries, the ...
Myanmar-China illegal timber trade still thriving: report
Timber extracted from Myanmar’s frontier forests is flowing into China in illegal transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars a year, according to a report published on 17 September. The research, by the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and partly financed by the UK, the European ...
Military police seize vehicle with army plates, rosewood
Military police in Kompong Chhnang province said they found 290 kg of rosewood in the back of an SUV with military license plates on 14 September but failed to apprehend the driver, who escaped in a car that had been following his. Keep reading ...
Myanmar third-worst for deforestation rate, says UN
Myanmar’s forests are in trouble. Two recent reports reveal the rapid loss of tree cover over the past five years has been so severe Myanmar ranks among the worst for deforestation in the world. Since 2010, Myanmar has lost more than 546,000 hectares (over 1.3 million ...
Trees ‘felled for pepper’
Batambang’s Phnom Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary is being illegally logged for pepper posts, with brokers bribing environment officers to transport the timber, residents and NGO workers have said. Keep reading ...
Cambodia logs top spot
Forest loss in Cambodia has accelerated faster than any other country in the world since 2001, according to a leading resource-monitoring initiative. Satellite data released by Global Forest Watch suggest that Cambodia has experienced the highest rate of tree-cover loss in the world over the past ...
Locals lead response to climate change in Myanmar
Inle Lake, one of Myanmar’s most well-known attractions, is framed in part by the lush-looking surrounds of the Shan mountain range. But on closer inspection, what appears to be the green of forest is mainly hardy bush and grass, dotted with a few small trees. Deforestation, particularly ...
