Livelihood rights

Fishermen in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta have been complaining about lower water levels and falling catches with experts blaming China’s construction of hydropower projects on the upper Mekong River. According to the experts, the dams have blocked fish from moving downstream and trapped sediment needed to enrich ...

Building more dams along the Mekong River will destroy the livelihoods of millions of people, according to a report commissioned by the Vietnamese government. It also says plans to construct new dams will damage crops with salt water intrusion, particularly in the south where the Mekong ...

The government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee on August 9 sent a request to its counterpart in Thailand to help push the Thai government to implement safety measures to protect Cambodian fishermen working in Thailand in often slave-like conditions, a request advocates said yesterday should have been ...

People in Tak province say nothing has been done about removing cadmium contamination from their water source, while the Appeals Court on 12 July upheld the Civil Court’s earlier ruling against zinc-mining companies on the leakage of toxins into the Mae Tao River Basin. The Southern ...

An anti-eviction protester who police claim orchestrated several large-scale reoccupation attempts on a planned rubber plantation in Mondolkiri province was arrested on 11 July, police and a rights monitor said. About 500 families living on the land were evicted in 2012, three years after the Pacific ...

For generations, Sokha’s family has lived in Bak Preah village on the Sangkae River – which passes through Battambang province and connects to the Tonle Sap lake about 70 kilometres away – depending almost solely on catching fish for their food and income. But with the ...

Caritas Luxembourg has provided a grant of over 1 million euros (more than 9 billion kip) to improve the Strengthening Livelihood Systems Project in Mok district, Xieng Khuang province. The project agreement was signed recently by the Director of the provincial Agriculture and Forestry Department, Mr ...

Many people’s hearts sink every time they see news photos about treeless mountains in once-verdant Nan province or mask-wearing people in frequently hazy Chiang Mai. “We used to have our own land plots and earned a living as farmers – but not anymore,” lamented a middle-aged ...

Suicide rates and poverty are on the rise among rice farmers displaced by Myanmar’s Paunglaung Dam. The change of government is expected to spur foreign investment into the country, contributing to its rapid development. But among the myriad issues facing the country, including  decades-long civil wars, the ...

Three great rivers rush through parallel canyons in the mountains of southwest China on their way to the coastal plains of Asia. At least 10 dams have been built on two of them, the Mekong and the Yangtze. The third remains wild: the remote, raging ...