Environment and natural resources
Cambodia Microfinance Should be Taxed to Address Climate Change Impact, Research Says
New research from Cambodia challenges the microfinance industry’s assertions that its loans help farmers to resist the impacts of climate change. In fact, the research argues, microfinance undermines the capacity of farmers to respond to unstable climate conditions. The profit from Cambodia generated by foreign-owned microfinance ...
David Whitehouse
Pristine bay in Phuket under threat from marina developers
A marina developer has plans to turn one of Phuket’s few remaining mangrove forests into a new gateway for luxury yachts and cruises post the Covid-19 pandemic period. In Ao Kung, a quiet bay in the northern part of bustling Phuket island, Sujirtra Thothip stood in ...
Wanpen Pajai
In Vietnam, farmers show a willingness to work with the elephant in the room
Solving human-wildlife conflict is a complex issue and a pressing concern for a wide variety of endangered species, none more so than the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). People living around Vietnam’s Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve, however, want to foster coexistence with elephants, not conflict. That’s ...
Sean Mowbray
Gridlocked and flood-prone, Vietnam’s biggest city struggles to keep pace with its own breakneck growth
As soon as the roads are widened a fresh glut of cars moves in to fill them, says lifelong Ho Chi Minh City resident Thinh Pham, who fears urban planning is forever condemned to lag behind the unrelenting growth of one of Southeast Asia’s most ...
Michael Tatarski
Two-week old dolphin calf spotted in Mekong
A dolphin calf, about two weeks old, was spotted on Sunday in one of the Mekong River’s deep pools in Kratie province by the research team of the Fisheries Administration and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), who confirmed the sixth calf recorded this year. Ouk Vibol, Director ...
Torn Vibol
Can Mekong Stingrays Tell the Chinese Dam Story Well?
Can a giant stingray in the Lower Mekong be used to craft a good narrative about Chinese upstream dams? It can, according to an unsigned Khmer Times article in June 2022 about a 300-kilogramme stingray found in Cambodia’s Stung Treng province. The article quoted Zeb Hogan, ...
HOANG THI HA
Vietnam loses sacred cranes after habitat change
Twenty years ago, Nguyen Van Liet took scientists to the wetlands near his hometown of Tram Chim on Vietnam’s Mekong Delta to find sarus cranes, a vulnerable bird species according to the IUCN Red List, native to Southeast Asia, South Asia and Australia. “We had to ...
Tran Nguyen
Mekong group upgrades flood forecasting tool
The Mekong River Commission has updated its monitoring and flood forecasting front page to provide better information on the Mekong conditions. The commission’s Flood and Drought Forecast and Monitoring page has recently been revitalized since the last improvement in 2018 with a new interface, the MRC, ...
Minh Nga
Waste startups and entrepreneurship tackle Cambodia’s growing trash problem
n a remote road in Battambang, Cambodia, 38-year-old Lam Samphors was driving to a community training when he came across a strikingly large pile of trash in the middle of the road. As he hit the brakes and gazed upon the mountain of garbage, Samphors ...
CHEA SAMEANG
Mekong tributaries burst banks, flooding 4,000 rai
Two major tributaries of the Mekong River have burst their banks, flooding about 4,000 rai of paddy fields in Sri Songkhram district of this northeastern province. The water level of the Mekong in Nakhon Phanom on Saturday was about 8 metres, or 4m below the spill-over ...
PATTANAPONG SRIPIACHAI
