Environment and natural resources

A new study by global primate experts found Vietnam in a dire situation with an increase in critically endangered species, several of which are endemic to the country.   Experts assessed the threat of extinction for 182 kinds of primates in South China, South and Southeast Asia, ...

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on 1 December declared in front of the world community that Thailand would slash greenhouse gases by 20-25 per cent within 15 years, but critics panned the plan, saying it was just for show, as it looked unrealistic. Prayut told the two-week-long United Nations climate-change ...

Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers Mao Monivann and Son Chhay visited a disputed area on the border between Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district and Vietnam on 30 November and urged the government to take action over several ponds allegedly dug by the Vietnamese in Cambodian territory. Keep reading ...

A Central Administrative Court judge has given a preliminary opinion dismissing villagers’ demands to have a say in the Xayaburi hydropower dam project, on the grounds that it is not a state-owned project. The judge, whose name court officials declined to reveal, also said that a process ...

A Supreme Administrative Court judge rapporteur has suggested it will rule in favour of five state agencies accused of violating laws in their handling of the Xayaburi Dam project in Laos. The judge opinion was the case against them be dismissed, as the five state agencies in ...

Over 100 students and climate change activists packed into a lecture hall at the Cambodia-Japan Cooperation Center at Royal University of Phnom Penh on 29 November afternoon for a “public mobilisation” to raise awareness of Cambodia’s position at the UN Climate Talks in Paris (COP 21) ...

After five years in which the government had concentrated on economic reforms, it was now time to protect the neglected environment, activists say. Speaking at a 25 November conference on environmental laws organised by the Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability, participants said the incoming government ...

One of the largest and rarest freshwater fish in the world was netted by local fishermen near Phnom Penh earlier this month. A two-metre Mekong giant catfish, weighing an estimated 90 to 114 kilos, one of only a handful left of a species that faces extinction, ...

With many companies in Vietnam remaining energy inefficient, the demand for consultation on energy saving solutions is high. The Ho Chi Minh City Energy Conservation Centre, for instance, has been offering consultation to more than 200 companies a year. Keep reading ...

Villagers in Namai, central Laos, are unanimous in saying that the greatest threat facing Namai now is natural disaster – in the form of cyclones, storms, floods and drought. Over the past 10 years, say village leaders, they have seen record floods, droughts and landslides, ...