News

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Work on the fifth Lao-Thai Friendship Bridge across the Mekong River, linking Pakxan district in Borikhamxay province to Bueng Kan province in northeastern Thailand, is now 23 per cent complete. The bridge is expected to be fully complete in 2024 and will serve to boost trade ...

Evidence of the climate crisis is everywhere. The Mekong River has recorded historically low dry-season flows for the third year in a row, alongside an increase in the frequency of extreme flood events. Its delta is continuing to sink and shrink, while its riverbanks erode, ...

The central city of Da Nang topped the Digital Transformation Index (DTI) rankings in 2020 for localities nationwide in all three key pillars of digital government, digital economy and digital society, according to the DTI 2020 Report released several days ago by the Ministry of ...

A drone camera soars over a timber yard where thousands of tons of logs are strewn across the ground. In one clip, a bulldozer scoops up a heap of wood while black smoke billows out of its exhaust pipe. In another, workers load wood onto ...