Environment and natural resources
As loggers exploit virus, Cambodian forest protectors defy state ban
A Cambodian conservation group has warned that logging in the protected Prey Lang forest has ramped up during the coronavirus pandemic, vowing it would continue to monitor the destruction despite government threats of legal action to stop that work. Members of the Prey Lang Community Network ...
Matt Blomberg
Mondulkiri sanctuary land grabbers charged
In April, 13 suspects were charged in the Mondulkiri Provincial Court for encroaching on forest land in wildlife sanctuaries at Phnom Prich, Srepok, Nam Lear, and Keo Seima, said Ministry of Environment secretary of state and spokesperson Neth Pheaktra. The sanctuaries are protected under the Law ...
Soth Koemsoeun
Mekong Delta residents flee as nature turns hostile
Their ancestors had come to settle the Mekong Delta, turning it into the nation’s agriculture and aquaculture hub, but now they are fleeing. At three in the morning, Dang Van Binh, 34, wakes up in his hut by a river in An Phu Trung Commune in ...
Hoang Nam, Pham Linh
Carbon credits up in forests
Minister of Environment Say Sam Al has urged relevant stakeholders to take part in protecting and conserving natural resources in wildlife sanctuaries. This, he said, will facilitate carbon credit sales to raise money to support local communities. Sam Al made his suggestion when he led experts ...
Soth Koemsoeun
Mekong basin water levels back to normal long-term averages
The Mekong River Commission(MRC) yesterday said the water levels across the vast majority of lower Mekong basin have now returned to their normal long-term averages. The announcement was made after the MRC last month called member countries and Dialogue Partners to improve the management of the ...
Ben Sokhean
China held water back from drought-stricken Mekong countries, report says
Last year, while parts of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and southern Vietnam experienced a devastating drought, China held abundant water on the Upper Mekong River back from downstream communities, wiping out crops and fishing stock and bringing one of the world’s great waterways to its knees. At ...
Michael Tatarski
2020 Northern Thailand forest fires snapshot
Situation As Thailand and the rest of the world continue to fight the COVID 19 pandemic, the North of Thailand is fighting a different battle. For over two months now provinces in the north have been blanketed by haze and smoke from ravaging forest fires. Forest fires ...
WWF-TH
Indigenous groups in Myanmar lash out at ‘restrictive’ conservation policies
In late 2018, following a series of demonstrations and confrontations, indigenous communities primarily from the Rawang ethnic minority expelled the Myanmar Forest Department and its international partner, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), from an area known as the Hkakaborazi Landscape, amid mounting dissent over a ...
Emily Fishbein
Researchers reconstruct drought variability from teak tree rings in Southern Myanmar
Teak (Tectona grandis) is a tropical, deciduous, broad-leaved tree species indigenous to Southeast Asia. Despite its high dendroclimatological potential, only a few studies have analyzed the relationships between teak ring-width and climate variability in Myanmar. In a study published in Geophysical Research Letters, researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical ...
Zhang Nannan, Chinese Academy of Sciences
China could have choked off the Mekong and aggravated a drought, threatening the lifeline of millions in Asia
China’s upstream activities along the Mekong River have long been contentious — but a recent study has sparked fresh scrutiny over its dam-building exercises, reigniting warnings that millions of livelihoods could be destroyed. A U.S.-government funded study by research and consulting firm, Eyes on Earth, found that Chinese dams ...
Huileng Tan