Biodiversity
Animals
Rainbow snake, tiny frog among new Mekong species
A rainbow-headed snake, a tiny frog and a lizard with dragon-like horns are among more than 150 new species confirmed by scientists last year in the ecologically diverse but threatened Mekong region, researchers said on Monday. Winding its way from the Tibetan plateau through the ...
Dire threat to famed Côn Đảo flora, fauna
The famous Côn Đảo Island’s ecosystem and its biodiversity is seriously threatened by overexploitation and low environmental awareness of visitors and locals. Concerned officials as well as residents are calling for strong protective measures that can prevent the slide into irrecoverable loss. “The commercial hunting ...
Environmental and social monitoring receives World Bank support
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and its development partners organised a review of the Second Lao Environment and Social Project in 2016 and planning meeting for next year’s works. The concerned departments at the ministry highlighted the key achievements of 13 sub-projects under ...
Thai crane species gains new lease on life
The discovery of two new-born sarus crane chicks in the Huai Chorakhe Mak Non-Hunting area in Buri Ram two months ago has prompted a plan by the Zoological Park Organisation to have the birds de-listed as an extinct species. Instead, they look set to be reclassified ...
Last chance to see: paddling through time on the Mekong
Humility is a rare commodity in the era of the smartphone, selfies and carefully–coiffed digital personas. Gratitude, too, is unusual in the modern world where a sense of entitlement seems all pervasive. Despite most of us being aware enough to acknowledge that all human beings ...
New funding programme to help improve ecosystems in Borikhamxay
The Wildlife Conservation Society Laos Programme will work closely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to protect and conserve the unique and important species, habitats, and ecosystems in Borikhamxay province. An agreement on the Integrated Ecosystem and Wildlife Management Programme Phase 3 was signed ...
Gov’t mulls Japan-led facility for aquatic research
A committee will be established to look into the construction of a 5-hectare Japan-funded aquatic centre to facilitate the study of more than 600 species of freshwater fish from the Tonle Sap and Mekong rivers, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on November 25. “I have ...
Small-scale farming threatens rainforests in Sumatra
Rainforest cover in the Indonesian archipelago has since declined rapidly in recent years giving way to large-scale plantations of rubber and oil palm. A recent study published in Nature Communications finds that small-scale farming can be just as damaging to biodiversity as the plantations, since ...
Military training areas can be important wildlife refuges: new study
Bombs and biodiversity can go hand in hand, a new study has found. Military training areas — used for the training of armed forces — can maintain biodiversity and even support species threatened with extinction, despite years of repeated bombing, fires and other disturbances, scientists ...
Takeo pigs hit by outbreak of PRRS
A Takeo village’s pigs have been hit with an outbreak of a disease described by a senior Agriculture Ministry official as more economically damaging to Cambodian pig farmers than foot and mouth disease. The outbreak of porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome in Tram Kak district’s ...