Environment and natural resources
Forests and forestry
Road seems to deliberately threaten protected forest in Kon Tum
Thousands hectares of forest in the central highlands province of Kon Tum, Vietnam are facing extinction as the local authorities are determined to construct a road that seems of little benefit to travellers. The road project, invested by the provincial Department of Transport, was started since ...
Battle over mangrove sees SEZ trump NGO
A special economic zone developer will be allowed to continue bulldozing a mangrove forest in Preah Sihanouk province’s Teuk Thla commune, the provincial governor said on 10 May. Civil society groups had persuaded the provincial Fisheries Administration to ask the governor to protect the ecosystem, which ...
Auctions of illegal timber to resume, officials say
Top officials on 9 May said the government would be auctioning off some of the 70,000 cubic meters of wood authorities have seized in recent months, backtracking on a recent pledge Hun Sen made to stop the sales. In a surprise move at the Education Ministry’s annual ...
Fires burn large parts of Battambang forest
Fires have consumed more than 2,000 hectares of Prek Toal protected area in Cambodia’s Battambang province, killing some animals and destroying the breeding sites of multiple endangered species, Prek Toal project managers said on 5 May.Keep reading ...
Laos prepares for timber trade agreement with EU
The Technical Working Group of the Lao Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) process has elaborated a first draft Timber Legality Definition in preparation for the first face-to-face FLEGT/Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) negotiations between Laos and the European Union. The two-day workshop brought together 50 ...
New protected forest areas revealed
At a workshop on 25 April, Environment Minister Say Sam Al revealed the five areas to be included within 900,000 hectares of new protected forest would include parts of Prey Lang, Krovanh Khang Tbong, Preah Rokar, Siem Pang Khang Lech and Vern Sai forests with further ...
New protected forests test overstretched ministry
The nearly 1 million hectares of newly protected forests the Environment Ministry wants to create by the end of the year will add nearly a third more land to the portfolio of an agency already struggling to manage the 3.2 million hectares it has. And ...
DSI vows to help save Naga Noi forest
Pol Lt-Colonel Prawut Wongseenin, who heads the DSI Bureau of Consumer Protection and Environment Crime, disclosed on 6 April that the department in Thailand would ask Justice Minister General Paiboon Koomchaya for help in seeking an order from the junta to block any bulldozing operations pending ...
Laos, China and Vietnam join to combat wildlife trafficking
Frontline enforcement officers last from key provinces, ports and border posts in Laos, China and Vietnam completed an inter-agency field mission this week to share experiences, approaches and update the situation on wildlife smuggling networks along the major trade routes between China, Vietnam and Laos. Keep ...
Report calls for logging moratorium, end to state-run MTE
International and Burmese environmental organizations this week said Burma’s forest reserves are largely exhausted, calling for a moratorium on commercial logging and the dismantling or privatization of the state-owned Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE). Those finding came in an analysis released on 30 March in a report ...
