Environment and natural resources

As Vietnam is poised to take over the rotational chair of Asean in January 2020, its second foremost foreign policy priority after the South China Sea is reportedly the Mekong River region. While the South China Sea, where more than one third of global shipping ...

A confluence of drought and dams along the Mekong River has renewed concerns about the future of the 4,700-kilometer waterway, upon which tens of millions of people depend for their livelihoods in China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The number of dams impeding the Mekong’s flow ...

It is forecast that climate change will increase the risk of forest fires next year, therefore concerned organisations should be vigilant and prepare for fire prevention and control. Deputy Director of the Department of Forest Management Do Trong Kim made the statement at a conference held in the northern mountainous province ...

Indeed, the Mekong River—the tenth largest river hosting the second largest biodiversity in the world—is a gorgeous natural treasure that six countries on the Asian continent are blessed with. Her 4,909-kilometer journey commences on the vast hills of the Tibetan Plateau, spanning the territories of China, ...

The year—and the decade—in environmental terms, is coming to its end, with some species and entire ecosystems in their death throes. For starters, Malaysia recently lost its last Sumatran rhino, the poaching of Sabah’s pygmy elephants is rapidly increasing, Australia’s koala bears are being incinerated in wildfires, dugongs are dying in ...

For two decades or more, alarms have been sounding for the Mekong Delta. It’s being hammered by climate change, by a proliferation of upstream dams, by unsustainable and inappropriate farming practices, by greed and political expediency. The punishment the delta’s taking has been well reported, ...

A simple feasibility analysis shows the Mekong River in Cambodia would benefit from floating solar plants coupled with storage, rather than more hydro. Cambodia’s Great Lake, the Tonle Sap and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are suffering harmful impacts from the suppression of the Mekong River’s annual flood ...

Environment advocates are voicing concerns over the Mekong River’s deteriorating ecosystem, especially with more projects set to affect the waterway in the pipeline. “If these so-called development projects continue, especially the construction of more dams, the Mekong will face a crisis,” said Niwat Roi-kaeo, president of ...

Water in the Mekong river in this northeastern border province has turned from yellowish-brown to greenish-blue — a strange phenomenon that makes the river look beautiful but could be a sign of danger, according to a local media report. The water in the Mekong river is ...

Growing demand for timber as construction material, fuel and charcoal is devastating Cambodia’s forests. In 1975, the latter covered 73 per cent of the country’s surface; last year it was down to only 46.84 per cent. Cambodia’s forests – evergreen, semi-evergreen, deciduous and dry dipterocarp forests, ...