Environment and natural resources
Forests and forestry
Airbus to marshal its satellites against deforestation
One of the world’s largest aerospace companies is enlisting its satellites in the fight to save forests. That’s the aim of Starling, a new service developed by Airbus Defence and Space, nonprofit The Forest Trust and remote-sensing specialist SarVision. Food giants Nestlé and Ferrero, two of the ...
Gov’t, Vietnam exchange blame on logging
Cambodian conservation officials spoke publicly for the first time on October 10 about what they described as nearly three years of corrupt practices by their Vietnamese counterparts in facilitating the multibillion-dollar illicit trade in Siamese rosewood. But their complaint comes amid allegations from Hanoi that ...
Scoring palm oil buyers on their sustainability commitments
2015 was supposed to be a big year for the palm oil industry — the year it proposed to reach a “tipping point” and begin predominantly producing and trading palm oil that was not responsible for the destruction of forests, abuses of human rights, and ...
EU provides satellite training for Forestry Administration
The European Union has begun training Cambodia’s Forestry Administration to use satellite imagery to crack down on deforestation. Members of the EU’s Joint Research Centre have been meeting with forestry officials since September 26, teaching them how to analyse images captured by the EU’s Sentinel-2 satellite ...
Govt vows to standardise wood processing plants
The government has instructed authorities in charge to inspect wood processing plants nationwide to ensure the plants’ operations meet production and environmental quality standards. Inspection will be launched into all licensed 1,595 plants across the country and a number of criteria will be used to assess ...
Civet species thought to be extinct found in central Vietnam
The large-spotted civet species recently discovered in the Phong Dien Nature Reserve in Hue city was previously considered to be extinct in Vietnam and China by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. According to the Forest Protection Department of Thua Thien – Hue province, ...
Pulp and paper supplier denies draining peat on island near Singapore
A NASA satellite detected 140 hotspots in West Kalimantan on September 12 as smallholders in the province continued to burn land for agriculture, Indonesia’s disaster management agency said on September 13. Data from Global Forest Watch shows the district of Ketapang recorded 144 fire alerts over the ...
Indonesian environment ministry shoots down geothermal plan in Mount Leuser National Park
The Indonesian environment ministry has denied the Aceh provincial government’s proposal to rezone part of Mount Leuser National Park for geothermal development, reacting to opposition from conservationists who argued the project would threaten key orangutan and rhino populations. The ministry’s director for protected areas told Mongabay ...
North Korea flooding kills 133, displaces 107,000 - UN
Flooding from heavy rain in North Korea has killed 133 people in its northeast while 395 are missing, with many homes and critical infrastructure destroyed, a U.N. agency said on September 12. News of the natural disaster came as North Korea looked even more isolated from ...
Only certain plantation tree species may be exported: govt spokesman
Only certain species of trees grown in managed plantations may be exported, not all species, the government spokesman said last week. Eucalyptus and kathinnalong trees whose trunks measure 12 centimetres or less may be felled for export but trees with larger trunks must not be used ...
