Forests and forestry
Forest cover
Vietnam agrees to World Bank deal to stop forest loss
Vietnam is set to receive tens of millions of dollars to help it keep a promise not to cut down trees, part of a controversial World Bank program that critics say does not produce its intended effect — carbon emission reductions. The Southeast Asian nation has ...
LIEN HOANG
Deforestation Hotspots Causing Wildlife Losses in Southeast Asia
Every two years, the World Wide Fund for Nature publishes a report that sums up the state of the world’s wildlife based on the monitoring of its projects around the world. The latest WWF report, titled the “Living Planet Report,” describes stunning declines in biodiversity caused ...
A commentary by Dan Southerland
Deforestation Brings Hardship For Cambodia’s Wild Honeybee Hunters
Every morning at 5:30, Yang Phorn and some of his neighbors from a village west of Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, climb on motorbikes to go honeybee hunting in a forest far from home. Before the 47-year-old and the others set, they prepare bags of rice and ...
RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
Photo Essay: Turning the Tide on the Relentless Destruction of Cambodia’s Forests
Few countries have suffered such severe deforestation over the past two decades as Cambodia, a land once covered with expansive woodlands that were home to Indochinese tigers, elephants, and scores of endemic plant and animal species. Satellite surveys show that only 3 percent of Cambodia’s primary ...
SEAN GALLAGHER
ASEAN loses a third of mangroves in last 40 years
The ASEAN region lost about 33 per cent of its mangrove forests between 1980 and 2020, a decrease of more than 63,000sq km, said the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB). Nations that comprise ASEAN have just around 43,000sq km of mangrove forests remaining. The ACB statement was ...
Khorn Savi
Activist ban ‘spurs forest crimes’
While Ministry of Environment officials claim they and relevant departments implement forest protection and conservation measures responsibly, forest protection activists have expressed frustration over their inability to participate in patrols where illegal logging took place. The activists complained they are barred from forest protection efforts and ...
Soth Koemsoeun
Illegal industrial park intrudes on southern Vietnam forest land
Inspectors have identified 41 factories built on 72 ha of land allocated for forest cultivation in Dong Nai Province ten years ago. The factories all belong to Phuoc Tan Industrial Park (IP) in Bien Hoa Town of Dong Nai that borders Ho Chi Minh City. The violation ...
Phuoc Tuan
Timber smuggling continues in Sagaing despite ban, virus
The number of illegal logs seized in the first nine months of the fiscal year shows that timber smuggling remains rampant in Sagaing Region despite the threat of COVID-19, the head of the regional Forest Department said. U Aung Tun Win, director of the department, said ...
Khin Su Wai
Gov’t, USAID Criticized for Inaction Over Severe Forest Loss at Prey Lang Sanctuary
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen released an open letter Thursday reporting a 73 percent increase in deforestation in 2019 at the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, compared to 2018, while criticizing the government’s ban on certain patrolling operations. The University of Copenhagen’s open letter used data ...
Sun Narin, VOA Khmer
Illegal logging, encroachment found in Narathiwat
A total of 36 rai of forest on Sankalakhiri mountain range in Chanae district of this southern province has been illegally cleared by encroachers, forest protection officials said. Acting on information from local villagers, Gen Jatuporn Kalampasut, director of the intelligence office of the Region 4 ...
WAEDAO HARAI