Agriculture and fishing
‘A major concern’: plantation-driven deforestation ramps up in Borneo
Borneo, home to animals like orangutans, rhinos, elephants, and proboscis monkeys is also host to some of the fastest plantation expansion in the world. Now, a new study published on September 9 in Nature’s open access journal Scientific Reports examines how much of this expansion has been happening ...
Indonesia to crack down on palm-oil companies burning land
Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar has warned that palm-oil companies found responsible for clearing land through illegal burning – cloaking much of Southeast Asia in noxious haze each year – will be prosecuted. “If we let this carry on and don’t resolve it, ...
Banks pump billions into deforestation-linked firms in Southeast Asia: study
Banks have financed companies responsible for rainforest destruction in Southeast Asia to the tune of billions of dollars, a study showed on September 6, and called on lenders to stop “fuelling forest crime”. Southeast Asia is home to some of the world’s most diverse rainforests, but ...
Ocean warming is “greatest hidden challenge of our generation,” according to IUCN
Global warming is changing Earth’s oceans and those impacts will last for decades even if we rein in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, according to new research. A report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature on September 5 finds that the effects of ...
Indonesia: Haze investigators held captive, threatened with death
A large group of about 100 men hired by an Indonesian palm oil firm took several investigators hostage last weekend in an apparent bid to stop their probe into the forest fires blamed for the region’s haze problem. According to Jakarta Globe, the captors, believed to be mobilized by PT Andika Permata ...
Credit growth starts to cool off
New data released by Cambodia’s independent credit reporting agency indicate a significant slowdown in the rate of lending during the second quarter of the year, a sign that banking industry experts claim is due to a tightening of lending criteria and less seasonal demand from ...
Safety debate erupts after Vietnam facility caught ripening durians with chemicals
Debate has raged in Vietnam over the use of legal chemicals to artificially ripen fruits, after a facility in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong was caught ripening numerous immature durians this way last week. On September 1, an inspection team raided a fruit facility ...
Mekong Delta region awaits floods
The Mekong Delta, the rice, seafood and fruit granary of the country, is facing landslides and sinking, as it no longer receives enough silt because of limited floodwaters. “We have been living here for several generations and we have never seen such poor floodwaters until the ...
Climate change could cause rice prices to nearly double by 2030: study
Climate change is threatening the Cambodian rice industry, and it is marginalised communities that will be worst affected unless the government takes action, according to a new study. The study’s authors, Sokuntheavy Hong and Jun Furuya, took historical climatic, socioeconomic and rice-yield data as their benchmark, ...
Poverty solutions prove challenging
Rural development and poverty eradication in Laos could face many challenges in the coming years before getting better in the long term, according to the National Committee for Rural Development and Poverty Eradication. The challenges include unexpected developments and the fact that regional and international integration ...
