Environment and natural resources
Biodiversity
What happens when the soy and palm oil boom ends?
Over the past thirty years demand and production of oils crops like oil palm and soybeans has boomed across the tropics thanks to rising incomes, macroeconomic changes and government policies, and substitution effects. This rapid expansion has in some places taken a heavy toll on ...
Endangered bull killed in park in Central Highlands
A seven-year-old male Bos Gaurus bull, an endangered species listed in Group IB in Việt Nam’s Red Book, was killed in a protected area in Chư Mom Ray National Park last Friday. Đào Xuân Thủy, deputy director of the park’s management board, said the bull, ...
Pak Beng inquiry sought
Environment Ministry official Eang Sophalleth said on February 20 that he has made a request to the Mekong River Commission that Laos adequately investigate the potential impacts of the proposed Pak Beng hydropower dam ahead of a meeting this week. State news agency AKP on February ...
Northern provinces assess efforts to control locust outbreak
Five northern provinces recently reported on their efforts to prevent and control locust outbreaks in the 2015-16 fiscal year, and announced plans to prevent a further invasion this year. The five provinces are Huaphan, Luang Prabang, Xieng Khuang, Oudomxay and Phongsaly. More than 4,000 hectares ...
Mekong projects must take impact on environment into account
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha may have been wrong when he said his government would clear the waterway for navigation in the Mekong River for the benefit of Thailand, suggesting that nobody should oppose this project. The Mekong runs through six countries in the region and ...
Foot-and-mouth affecting cattle
Many cattle in Svay Rieng province’s Svay Chrum and Chantrea districts have fallen ill or died from foot-and-mouth and other diseases over the past few weeks, resulting in the launch of a cattle vaccination campaign. Soun Norng, the deputy police chief of Chantrea district, said ...
Ecotourism gives impetus to tourism
Some 800,000 foreign tourists last year came to Thailand with the specific purpose of visiting villages, natural sites, communities, and hilltribes across the Kingdom, while more than 2 million Thai tourists also pursued these interests. They mingled well with like-minded travellers who cherished the “ecotourism” ...
The Philippines declares more than 100,000 acres as critical habitat
In November last year, the Philippines declared its largest critical habitat yet. Located in the long, narrow Philippine island of Palawan, the new Cleopatra’s Needle Critical Habitat is spread across 41,350 hectares (more than 100,000 acres). The second largest critical habitat, Carmen Critical Habitat for ...
New regional platform to develop tourism companies
The Mekong Business Initiative will launch a new platform next month aimed at developing startups in the tourism sector throughout the CLMV region, which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, a program organiser said on January 31. MBI, a program launched by the Asian Development ...
Ministry issues measures meant to counter wildfires
The Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries on January 30 signed off on a list of seven measures intended to guard against forest fires, although details on implementation remained scarce on January 31 and observers said they expected little to come of the new document. The ...
