Environment and natural resources

As the Tonle Sap floodplain empties into the Mekong this spring, the Cambodians who rely on these waters face bleak prospects, with fish catches reportedly 10 to 20% of previous years. Blame for the precipitous decline in the ecology has been put on the many hydropower projects ...

Southeast Asian countries would have likely experienced a much less severe drought last year if it were not for China’s dams, a new study says, prompting a pushback from the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC). The 4,000-km (2,485-mile) Mekong is one of the world’s longest rivers – ...

While attention is focused on the coronavirus pandemic, we must also be alert to another fast-spreading hazard claiming lives — wildfires. Several people died this year fighting fires in northern Thailand. Now, hundreds of fires are burning there, in Laos and Myanmar. We expect more fires ...

As the largest urban area in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City is known for its kinetic pace of life, rivers of motorbike traffic, and relentless construction. With an official population of 9 million and a booming economy based on manufacturing, real estate and tourism, there ...

Cracked riverbeds, empty fishing nets and, snaking its way through the parched landscape, a beautifully clear, blue-tinted river. This was the view of the mighty Mekong River earlier this year, when record-low water levels revealed a striking vulnerability to the main artery of Southeast Asia, a ...

A 39-year-old man was sent to the Oddar Meanchey Provincial Court on Wednesday for operating a timber-processing facility in Trapaing Prasat district’s Trapaing Prasat commune without a permit. Provincial environment department director Phuong Lina said 14 cubic metres of timber was seized from the makeshift workshop. “We ...

More than 100,000 hectares of forests in Luang Namtha province were destroyed by bushfires that raged for more than a month, officials have said. The Director of the Agriculture and Forestry Department of Luang Namtha, Mr Phimkeo Thamlasing, told Vientiane Times on Tuesday that the fires spread from ...

Eleven massive dams straddle the mighty Mekong River before it leaves China and flows into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and on into Vietnam. Yet I have long been skeptical  that China could use those 11 upstream dams, massive as they are, to turn off the ...

Thailand has found the largest number of nests of rare leatherback sea turtles in two decades on beaches bereft of tourists because of the coronavirus pandemic, environmentalists say. From wild boars patrolling the Israeli city of Haifa to deer venturing into London suburbs, virus closures are ...

The greater data sharing, transparency and cooperation between Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam and dialogue partners will improve management of the Mekong River, the Mekong River Commission said. The MRC said, in its 13-page long commentary note on a 2020 study exploring the effect of Chinese ...