Mongabay
Indigenous community mounts legal challenge to Thai coal mine development
Local opposition to a planned coal mine in northern Thailand escalated in April when plaintiffs representing more than 600 villagers filed a lawsuit requesting the revocation of an environmental impact assessment conducted and approved more than 10 years ago. Members of Kabeudin village, an Indigenous Karen ...
Carolyn Cowan
Large-scale logging in Cambodia’s Prey Lang linked to politically-connected mining operation
The early onset of Cambodia’s wet season had seen the rain fall thick over Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary, turning freshly cut paths through the forest into a near-impassible slick of churned-up mud. But the torrential weather had done little to deter local loggers, who rode ...
Gerald Flynn|Andy Ball|Vutha Srey
Meet the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of the six continental regions. The prize was founded in 1989 by U.S. philanthropists Rhoda and ...
Liz Kimbrough
Death of last river dolphin in Laos rings alarm bells for Mekong population
Known only by his identity code, ID#35 was the last individual of a doomed subpopulation of freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). He was the sole occupant of a deep pool in the Mekong River that spans the border between Cambodia and Laos, and fought for ...
Carolyn Cowan on
Thai tourism elephants are ‘far better off’ in forests: Q&A with photographer Adam Oswell
An Asian elephant supports itself on one leg, completely submerged in garish electric-blue water, while a keeper tugs painfully at its ear. The photograph shows bubbles rising from its trunk as it offers a stick of sugarcane toward a crowd of onlookers on the other ...
Carolyn Cowan
Tiger and bear rescue spotlights captive wildlife tourism woes in Thailand
The future of Phuket Zoo was uncertain long before the COVID-19 pandemic closed Thailand’s borders to foreign tourists. Animal rights campaigners had frequently raised concerns over conditions at the facility, and visitor numbers were dwindling. Now, after two years of near-zero income, the zoo has ...
Carolyn Cowan
Thai authorities demolish resorts in parks, but struggle to prosecute encroachers
Since October 2020, Thailand’s national parks authority has demolished or ordered the demolition of more than 20 luxury mansions, resorts and tourist hotels illegally built in national parks throughout the country’s Western Forest Complex, a globally significant biodiversity conservation corridor. Among the properties already demolished are ...
Kannikar Petchkaew
Greater Mekong primates struggle to cling on amid persistent threats: Report
When scientists described the Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa) as a species new to science in 2020, it was already staring extinction in the face. Fewer than 260 of the fluffy gray leaf-eating monkeys are estimated to remain across four precariously isolated patches of forest on Myanmar’s central ...
Carolyn Cowan
‘Thousands of trees’ burned and logged in Cambodia: Q&A with filmmaker Sean Gallagher
In January 2020, filmmaker Sean Gallagher traveled to Cambodia with a camera, drone, and a mission: to create a film revealing the impacts of deforestation. Riding on the backs of motorbikes driven by local activists, Gallagher spent several weeks venturing deep into protected forests in ...
Elizabeth Claire Alberts
How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
Over the past decade, the European Union entered into collaborative agreements with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime and verify the legality of wood imported into the EU. Within the Greater Mekong, Vietnam was the first (and to date, only) country to sign such a voluntary ...
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong