News
Mining companies hunt for buried treasure on indigenous Cambodian land
Deep in the forests of northeast Cambodia, bamboo shoots criss-crossed rays of sunlight as 26-year-old Tang Kalann passed by open and covered pits near the Tang Se community, comprising four indigenous Jarai villages where he lives. For years, the mining firm Angkor Resources Corp., formerly Angkor ...
JACK BROOK
Over 4,400 Myanmar refugees flee to Thailand to escape fighting
Over 4,400 people from Myanmar have fled into the country since Thursday last week to escape clashes between government soldiers and an armed ethnic minority group, the Thai military said Wednesday. As the fighting between Myanmar’s ruling military and the Karen National Union intensifies in south-eastern ...
Kyodo News
Mekong fishermen struggle to survive
As dawn breaks on the serene lake of Bình Thiên in An Giang Province, fisherman Đặng Hữu Đức instructs his 17-year-old son to cast a net into the clear water of the largest freshwater lake in Việt Nam’s Mekong Delta. To his son’s disappointment, when the net ...
VNS
Inside the Campaign to Save an Imperiled Cambodian Rainforest
We were seated near a lush river in the Southern Cardamom Mountains, huddled over a lunch of chicken and rice, when the tip came in via text message: Someone had passed along the location of a poaching camp. Within minutes, the entire group — including Darian ...
Francesco Lastrucci
For Mekong officials fighting timber traffickers, a chance to level up
The trafficking of illicit timber has hit the forested, tropical countries around the Mekong River Delta hard in recent years. Regulations and laws in places like the European Union and the United States, as well as from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species ...
John C. Cannon
A water diversion project that China is funding in Thailand is raising eyebrows
Plans for a new water diversion project in Thailand are alarming environmentalists. And a Chinese state-owned firm offered to finance it, raising flags with those who fear China’s growing influence. ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: In Thailand, plans for an ambitious water diversion project are raising lots of questions ...
MICHAEL SULLIVAN
Tigers, jaguars under threat from tropical hydropower projects: Study
The flooding of land for hydroelectric dams has affected more than one-fifth of the world’s tigers (Panthera tigris) and one in two hundred jaguars (Panthera onca), according to the findings of a new study published Dec. 9 in the journal Communications Biology. Seen by some as a low-carbon solution ...
Carolyn Cowan
Where does the Greater Mekong’s illegal timber go?
After forests are logged, felled trees are typically sent to sawmills, where they’re processed into boards, or lumber. It’s in this processed form that wood typically enters the international commodity supply chain. But not all lumber is created equal. In the Greater Mekong region, high-quality hardwoods ...
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong
Thai construction tycoon jailed for poaching protected animals
Thailand’s supreme court has sentenced construction tycoon Premchai Karnasuta to two and a half years in prison without probation on charges related to the poaching of protected animals, a prosecutor told Reuters news agency. Premchai, president of Thai construction company Italian-Thai Development, was found guilty on ...
AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
6 countries vow water cooperation
Lancang-Mekong River countries have vowed strengthened cooperation on water resources management as they forge ahead to cope with common challenges in the basin, including drought caused by climate change. Heads of water resources authorities of the six countries made the remarks as they gathered online on ...
Hou Liqiang