Mongabay
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
Major clothing brands contribute to deforestation in Cambodia, report finds
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 ...
Elizabeth Claire Alberts
The Greater Mekong region: A hotspot of wildlife and crime
Did you know that illegal logging can be five times as lucrative as selling the world’s most well-known soda? In 2020, the Coca-Cola company reported $33 billion in revenue. The global illegal timber trade, in comparison, generates up to $152 billion a year — accounting for up ...
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong
COP26 deforestation-ending commitment must hold leaders accountable (commentary)
It is a commendable goal to end and reverse deforestation within a decade, one which if met would protect both people and the planet, but this is a crisis now. The Amazon is hurtling towards a “tipping point” beyond which it may be lost. In ...
Steve Trent
Following coup, Myanmar’s Indigenous vow to protect forests ‘until the end of the world’ (commentary)
The Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar is a beautiful and rich expanse of rainforest, ocean, and mangroves where we still have wild tigers and elephants, and where the forest provides all that we need in life. It is my home land. Our Indigenous communities depend ...
Esther Wah
Environmental activist ‘well-hated’ by Myanmar junta is latest to be arrested
As demonstrations and deadly crackdowns continue to roil Myanmar following the military coup in February, land and environmental defenders are increasingly under threat. In the seven months since protests erupted, the junta’s clampdown on dissent has caused more than 1,000 deaths. Nearly 8,000 people have been arrested, ...
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong
Mangrove restoration done right has clear economic, ecological benefits
In the green and dimly lit mangrove forests of West Papua in Indonesia, towering Rhizophora trees loom more than 40 meters (130 feet) overhead into the canopy, their tangled roots taller than a human. Oceans away in the Caribbean, mangroves of the same genus reach a maximum ...
Sheryl Lee Tian Tong
With Myanmar’s press muzzled, experts warn of surge in environmental crimes
In the wake of the Feb. 1 military coup, Myanmar’s new regime leaders escalated their forceful crackdown on nationwide protests with sweeping restrictions on the media, severely curtailing independent journalism in particular. Authorities have stripped at least seven local media outlets of their licenses, enforced strict ...
Carolyn Cowan
Deforestation surge continues amid deepening uncertainty in Myanmar
Carved out of the of the narrow isthmus that connects the Malay Peninsula to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia, Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region rises from the Andaman Sea in the west to the forested Tenasserim Hills that border Thailand in the east. While much of ...
Carolyn Cowan
Cambodian dam a ‘disaster’ for local communities, rights group says
The Lower Sesan 2 hydroelectric scheme was completed in northeast Cambodia in 2018. The reservoir flooded 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) upstream of the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok rivers, two tributaries of the Mekong. Villages, places of worship, ancestral burial grounds and ...
Carolyn Cowan