Environment and natural resources

The early onset of Cambodia’s wet season had seen the rain fall thick over Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, turning freshly cut paths through the forest into a near-impassible slick of churned-up mud. But the torrential weather had done little to deter local loggers, who rode ...

Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of the six continental regions. The prize was founded in 1989 by U.S. philanthropists Rhoda and ...

Indigenous activists and lawyers who took on transnational corporations and their own governments to force climate action are among the 2022 winners of the world’s pre-eminent environmental award. Taking on powerful vested interests is a risky business, and the recipients of this year’s Goldman prize demonstrate ...

Over the past 20 years, Niwat Roykaew, a teacher, activist and founder of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group in Chiang Rai province has been campaigning to bolster the grassroots movement he initiated to protect the Mekong River, a crucial lifeline for countries in the Mekong ...

Kachin State’s Chipwi Township in northernmost Myanmar is known for its pristine forests and crystal-clear water. But 10 years ago, local residents started noticing the patches of land that had been cleared on the lush mountains surrounding their town, which borders China’s Yunnan province. It started ...

Hundreds of critically endangered baby giant turtles were released into Cambodia’s Mekong River to mark World Turtle Day on Monday. Cantor’s giant softshell turtles have all but vanished across their former territory in Vietnam and Thailand thanks to poaching and illegal trade, and were only rediscovered ...

Receiving visiting Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in Boston on May 14 (local time), Kerry expressed his impression of Vietnam’s COP26 commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2025, as well its approach to energy transformation and climate change response. He assured Chinh ...

Last month, researchers found microplastics — small, microscopic pieces of plastic fragments — within human lungs for the first time. This comes on the heels of news that microplastics were found in human blood, which may travel around the body and enter organs. Microplastics find their ...

Milton Osborne mischaracterises the Mekong River Commission when writing last month in The Interpreter that the regional organisation “ignores reality”. To say we were “celebrating” the health of the river at our Mekong Day event on 5 April overlooks the fact that on that day I continued ...

US scientists have suggested that unexplored deep pools in the Mekong River in an area of Stung Treng could potentially be home to significant populations of giant freshwater stingrays, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish species. This comes as a fisherman hooked a 180kg stingray ...