Environment and natural resources
Forests and forestry
Threats against Cambodian Forest Defenders Escalate Amid COVID-19
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 ...
Community Forests to be upgraded for food security in the Deep South
The Southern Border Provinces Administrative Center (SBPAC) is joining hands with the Royal Forest Department and other relevant agencies in rehabilitating and upgrading community forests in the Deep South in order to generate employment and income for local residents. SBPAC Secretary-General Rear Admiral Somkiat Pholprayoon said ...
Over 5,000 tonnes of illegal timber seized in Sagaing Region
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 ...
Aye Maung (Translated by Hay Mar)
WWF expresses sorrow over loss of globally endangered wildlife
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) shared its sadness over the loss of two adult female Banteng in Northeastern part of Cambodia, according to its statement released recently. The two Banteng are believed to have been shot dead a few days inside Phnom Prich Wildlife ...
Mekong region under threat, report claims
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 ...
Ry Sochan
How protecting forests and their communities can prevent the next outbreak
Clear-cutting forests may provide short-term monetary gains, but the true costs of mass deforestation could be steep. The novel coronavirus that has caused the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic is believed to be zoonotic, meaning it first spread from animals to humans. Not only is that a common ...
CAROLYN COWAN
Indigenous People Protest Over Farmland in Keo Seima Sanctuary
More than 200 indigenous people in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district protested on Tuesday for access to farmland inside a wildlife sanctuary, which the Environment Ministry banned them from last month, citing conservation laws. Bun Nat, a representative of the protesters, said 250 ethnic minority Bunong ...
Khan Leakhena
COVID-19: Why saving our forests can help stop the next pandemic
Preventing the further destruction of Southeast Asia’s forests will be a critical step to stopping the spread of future deadly viruses similar to COVID-19, according to leading experts studying the risk factors that have contributed to the current global pandemic. Over the past four decades, swathes of ...
Jack Board
Massive illegal forest clearing found in Koh Kong province
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 ...
Khuon Narim
WWF researchers spot herd of wild elephants in Mondulkiri sanctuary
WWF-Cambodia says researchers had a close encounter with a herd of wild Asian elephants in Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary in Mondulkiri province which is a positive sign conservation efforts are working. A WWF-Cambodia statement on Friday said its researchers encountered the herd in mid-April, while they were ...
Sen David