Environment and natural resources
Forests and forestry
A new method to help track the Mekong’s rare wildlife
Scientists are rapidly developing new DNA-methods to identify what kind of life is present in rivers, lakes and the ocean. Advocates of the method claim that it has the potential to revolutionise the way environmental monitoring is done. Keep reading ...
Asia’s Environmental Apocalypse 2019?
This year’s environmental news kicked off in grisly fashion: a Vietnamese poaching gang recording one of its members straddling and punching a snared and presumably dead tiger (the Thai authorities say they have caught the perpetrators) in one of Thailand’s protected areas. Thailand has always seemed, to ...
Current threats and future hopes for the greater Mekong’s mangroves
Critical to the health of rivers, shorelines and forests globally, today only 150,000 square kilometers (57,900 square miles) of mangroves remain, down from 320,000 square kilometers (123,550 square miles) 50 years ago. Vietnam, Thailand and Myanmar are home to the largest mangrove forests in the Greater ...
How wasps saved Asia’s forests
In our recent study, we combined field observations and satellite imagery to show how the tiny pest-killing lopezi wasp (Anagyrus lopezi) helped combat deforestation in Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam by controlling a pest that was devastating cassava crops across the region. Keep reading ...
Forest activists issue damning report of logging at Prey Lang
Activist groups from four provinces jointly published a report showing that 41 per cent of new tree stumps at the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary that was recorded over the last two years were the result of illegal logging. The 7th Prey Lang Monitoring Report by ...
Illegal logging claims refuted
Forest activists in Battambang province’s Samlot district said on Thursday that a company that has received an economic land concession (ELC) in the area is trading timber from outside its ELC boundary. The activists said Rath Sambath, whose ELC is located near the Phnom Samkos Wildlife ...
Small Voices, Real Actions of People in Forests
Similar to other ethnic groups, people of Hmong at Ban Pang Kob living in the buffer zone of Doi Phu Kha National Park and Khun Nan National Park are entirely dependent on the forests. Their livelihoods and food security from surrounding forests are now facing ...
Seminar seeks to address land subsidence in Mekong Delta
A scientific seminar on land subsidence in the Mekong Delta – situation and solutions took place in Hanoi on December 28. In his opening speech, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Vo Tuan Nhan said climate change, riverside landslide and land subsidence are posing challenges ...
Protected Forest in Cambodian Commune Illegally Logged Through Official Collusion: Mother Nature
Around 1,200 hectares (2,965 acres) of protected forest from a commune in Cambodia’s Ratanakkiri province has been illegally logged for timber and sold to businessmen from neighboring Vietnam through collusion with Cambodian authorities, an environmental watchdog group said Wednesday. An investigator with the Cambodian nongovernmental organization ...
SPECIAL REPORT: Blood-hued Phayung almost gone as corrupt officials pave way for logging
BY KAENG E-KHIEW Waterfall in northeastern Buntrik-Yod Mon Wildlife Sanctuary a mature male elephant lay dead, with traces of a highly volatile bullet left in its mouth and its bud. Another AK47 bullet was found buried in its ribs. A check of camera traps installed one ...
PIYAPORN WONGRUANG
