Environment and natural resources
Several primate species teeter toward extinction
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Primatologists have identified the 25 most endangered primates globally, of which three are endemic to Vietnam, according to a press release from the Fauna & Flora International- Vietnam Programme. The Cat Ba langur (Trachypithecus poliocephalus), Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri) and Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) are ...
ADB boosts climate funds
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The pool of climate finances available to Southeast Asia is set to expand following an announcement by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) that it plans to double its climate funding to the region by 2020 – a move welcomed by the Cambodian government and climate ...
Vietnam falls short on forestry protection plan
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Vietnam is facing a critical reduction in forest areas five years after it implemented the national forest protection and development programme, forest authority officials said. Deputy Director of Viet Nam Forestry Administration, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Nguyen Ba Ngai said nearly 1.2 million ...
Trash dumping threatens Yangon waterways
As the National League for Democracy embarks on a volunteer program to keep the country’s streets clean, experts said that Yangon’s water quality is at risk because people keep throwing garbage into rivers, creeks and ditches. Keep reading ...
Vietnam will face severe water shortage for treating rivers badly: experts
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Vietnam is using its major rivers as dumping grounds or excavation sites, and this poses a risk of severe water shortage for tens of millions of people in the near future, experts warn. Members of Vietnam Rivers Network (VNR), the country’s largest advocacy group for water ...
Myanmar carries out litter collection drive
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Myanmar’s National League for Democracy, which scored a stunning victory in November’s general election, carried out a litter collection drive over the weekend. Keep reading ...
Mixed feelings over COP21 agreement
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Cambodia’s delegates are returning with mixed feelings about the agreement to try and save the planet from catastrophic climate change that was adopted on 12 December at the UN Climate Talks in Paris, known as COP21. In an email sent just before the treaty was adopted, government ...
National Assembly stands firm on timber tax
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Valuable woods are not subject to a resource tax decrease for fears it might unintentionally trigger worsening deforestation, voted the National Assembly’s Standing Committee (NASC) on 10 December. The debate on wood taxes was sparked as the NASC weighed in on the draft of the amended ...
NGOs condemn dam power at COP21
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Major hydropower projects like the large-scale dams under way in Cambodia’s waterways are a “false solution” to climate change, according to a global coalition of 300 NGOs who are calling on parties at UN climate talks in Paris (COP21) to bar such schemes from climate ...
Thai border shooting injures two loggers
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Thai soldiers opened fire on a group of 17 illegal loggers on 10 December evening, wounding two, police said. The group had illegally crossed the border into Thailand in Oddar Meanchey province under cover of darkness when they encountered a Thai patrol, according to Brigadier General Men ...