Environment and natural resources
Construction of fifth Lao-Thai Mekong bridge 23% complete
Work on the fifth Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River, linking Pakxan district in Borikhamxay province to Bueng Kan province in northeastern Thailand, is now 23 per cent complete. The bridge is expected to be fully complete in 2024 and will serve to boost trade ...
Major clothing brands contribute to deforestation in Cambodia, report finds
A drone camera soars over a timber yard where thousands of tons of logs are strewn across the ground. In one clip, a bulldozer scoops up a heap of wood while black smoke billows out of its exhaust pipe. In another, workers load wood onto ...
Elizabeth Claire Alberts
Trouble on the Mekong
Two reports released last month by The Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental organisation that works with the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam to jointly manage the river’s resources, serve as a crucial health check on the state of Southeast Asia’s longest river ...
MARK TILLY
Ben Tre develops forests in climate change response
The People’s Committee of southern Ben Tre province has issued a plan to carry out a project on coastal forest protection and development in adaptation with climate change and green growth promotion for the 2021-2030 period. Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Minh Canh said the ...
VNA
New dams on 3S rivers endanger survival of the Mekong
“It’s rare to see the birds these days, they’re gone. They lived off the fish, but most of the fish are gone too,” says Vuth Khat as he tours what used to be his village in the northeastern Cambodian province of Stung Treng and talks ...
Gerald Flynn, Phoung Vantha
Mekong Delta provinces to spend $39 mln on water supply systems
Water supply systems in the Mekong Delta are expected to be improved at a cost of over VND900 billion ($39.6 million). Kien Giang for example proposes to build a water supply system spanning 97 km that will reach An Bien, An Minh, U Minh Thuong, and ...
Ngoc Tai
Champassak to forge ahead with Mekong management project
Authorities in Champassak province are confident that the Mekong River Integrated Management Project planned for Pakxe city will soon resume now that the Ministry of Finance has submitted a request for an additional loan to complete the first phase of the Landslide Protection Project. Officials in ...
Times Reporters
Ambitious steps to go carbon neutral
To the surprise of many, Thailand announced at the recent COP26 climate summit in Glasgow that it would increase its long-term ambition on climate action — pledging to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 and to achieve an economy with net-zero GHG emissions by or before ...
PETER DU PONT
Another poor wet season endangers Cambodia’s biggest lake and its people
Climate change, unsustainable and illegal fishing and the proliferation of hydropower dams on rivers that feed Tonle Sap threaten the livelihoods of over one million Cambodians. Sarun Nong, a fisher on Koh Krabey, a small island in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap lake, takes another look at the fishing net ...
By Ate Hoekstra, The Third Pole
Vietnam reconsiders methane-emitting rice amid climate crisis
At the United Nations COP26 summit in Scotland, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh joined 109 countries in pledging to reduce methane emissions by 30 percent by 2030. To meet the commitment, the Southeast Asian nation will need to look at rice – one of the ...
Govi Snell