Interview: How will plans to protect 30% of Earth work for Southeast Asia?

In May, Campaign for Nature announced that Southeast Asian nations were showing growing support for the goal of protecting 30% of the planet’s land and oceans by 2030. Dr Zakri Abdul Hamid is ambassador for the campaign, which is a partnership between the Wyss Campaign for ...

Tyler Roney

USAID redirects funding in Cambodia as future of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary hangs in the balance

More than a month has passed since the Cambodia branch of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced it would be ending its assistance to Cambodian government entities through the USAID Greening Prey Lang project and the future of the 431,683-hectare wildlife sanctuary ...

Gerald Flynn

Geopolitical standoff in South China Sea leads to environmental fallout

A long-running territorial standoff over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea has seen vessels dumping enough raw sewage to threaten the marine ecosystem there — and the degradation is extensive enough to be seen from space. On July 12, U.S.-based geospatial tech company Simularity ...

Leilani Chavez

New discovery gives world’s most endangered turtle a fighting chance

Like many turtle species, Swinhoe’s softshell turtle (Rafetus swinhoei) has for centuries held special cultural significance in Vietnam. For the people of the country, the Hoan Kiem turtle, as it is known locally, is a symbol of Vietnam’s independence and prosperity. According to the legend passed ...

Hoang Bich Thuy, Nguyen Dinh Thang

Southeast Asia losing tigers as deadline looms to double population by 2022

Tigers once roamed throughout the dense forested interior of mainland Southeast Asia and several islands of Indonesia. Positioned at the pinnacle of the food chain, tigers maintain ecosystem balance, and by protecting them, we can preserve entire biodiverse landscapes. However, the long-term survival of this flagship ...

Carolyn Cowan

Guar herd caught on camera: ministry

A herd of gaurs with calves was spotted by an infrared-triggered camera trap at one of the Kingdom’s many wildlife sanctuaries, raising hopes among local and international biodiversity conservationists that the species can be saved from extinction, according to the Ministry of Environment on July ...

Mom Kunthear

COVID or not, ‘the desire to eat wildlife’ continues in Asia

Continuing attempts to curb the sale of wild animals and their meat have failed to engender change at wet markets in the Asia Pacific, even as the region struggles to contain the largest and deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. According to ...

Ian Lloyd Neubauer

Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia

A new regulation signed into law in March this year but only unveiled publicly in May will see almost 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land in Cambodia made available for sale or rent, prompting fears among conservationists about a land grab for some ...

GERALD FLYNN & ANDREW BALL & PHOUNG VANTHA

Deforestation of endangered wildlife habitat continues to surge in southern Myanmar

Tanintharyi, Myanmar’s portion of the spit of land that splits the Gulf of Thailand from the Andaman Sea, is still swathed in old growth rainforest home to a unique medley of animals and plants – some of which are endangered and found nowhere else on ...

Morgan Erickson-Davis

Irrigation dams threaten Thailand’s tiger forests, say conservationists

A plan to construct seven dams in one of mainland Southeast Asia’s last intact forest systems could cause widespread habitat loss and sever important wildlife corridors, activists warn. The Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai (DPKY) Forest Complex is a vast and biodiverse region that spans six provinces in ...

Carolyn Cowan

Contact us

Contact us

Do you have questions on the content published by Open Development Mekong? We will gladly help you.

Have you found a technical problem or issue on the Open Development Mekong website?

Tell us how we're doing.

Do you have resources that could help expand the Open Development Mekong website? We will review any map data, laws, articles, and documents that we do not yet have and see if we can implement them into our site. Please make sure the resources are in the public domain or fall under a Creative Commons license.

File was deleted
ERROR!

Disclaimer: Open Development Mekong will thoroughly review all submitted resources for integrity and relevancy before the resources are hosted. All hosted resources will be in the public domain, or licensed under Creative Commons. We thank you for your support.

hhep5
* The idea box couldn't be blank! Something's gone wrong, Please Resubmit the form! Please add the code correctly​ first.

Thank you for taking the time to get in contact!