Deforestation drivers

Widespread illegal logging and the repression of environmental activism are among the grave threats to Cambodia’s Prey Lang rainforest, Amnesty International said today, one year after authorities banned environmental defenders from entering the Prey Lang wildlife sanctuary. Recent images and remote sensing data reviewed by Amnesty ...

Illegal burning of rice stubble and land at the periphery of forests continues to occur throughout the Kingdom’s rural areas, especially in the north and northeast regions, according to officials who documented the activities on site. Wong Devorn, a civil servant and history professor, told The ...

The Royal Academy of Cambodia (RAC) will start enforcing the law to arrest perpetrators and seize timber and bulldozers as there is still illegal logging at Preah Vihear province’s Techo Sen Russey Trep Park. RAC president Sok Touch said yesterday that his patience has been exhausted, ...

“We bury a GPS tracker in the wood. We call them rabbits,” says Cheewapap Cheewatham, director of Thailand’s Forest Protection and Fire Control Bureau, part of the forestry department. He tells China Dialogue that they used to just impound as evidence cut rosewood they found ...

A series of reports this year show that protected forest areas across Cambodia are under increasing threat from land grabs and deforestation. As Cambodians struggle with the economic impacts of COVID-19, journalists and advocates report that illegal logging and land development continues, from central Cambodia’s Prey Lang Forest to the Cardamom Mountains ...

Rising across remote stretches of southeast Cambodia, the Cardamom Mountains harbor dense tropical rainforest, much of it native growth carpeting the range’s wet slopes. Due to its remoteness, the vast protected area has historically seen relatively little human activity, which helped safeguard crucial tracts of ...

The Forestry officials, along with police from the Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division seized sawn pieces of timber valued at about B60,000 at the site, located in the hills on Phra Barami Soi 7. Boonlarp Suksai, Chief of the Royal Forestry Department Region 12 ...

The recent, devastating floods highlight the fragility of the country’s natural environment. Deforestation, expanded farming, timber harvesting, and hydroelectric dams are the main culprits. In four years, 7,300 hectares of forest have been lost. So far, about 800 large, medium and small plants have been ...

There has been a sudden demand for old-growth wild ornamental trees in recent years, leading to the destruction of forest trees in the Central Highlands and South Central Vietnam while local authorities have their hands tied. Ancient trees from Central mountains are being harvested to bring ...

Every two years, the World Wide Fund for Nature publishes a report that sums up the state of the world’s wildlife based on the monitoring of its projects around the world. The latest WWF report, titled the “Living Planet Report,” describes stunning declines in biodiversity caused ...