Mongabay

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta is approximately the same size as the Netherlands — about 41,000 square kilometers (16,000 square miles) — and is home to 17 million people, very nearly the same population as the Netherlands. Perhaps that made dialogue easier. Unlike many foreign experts, the Dutch ...

On any list of places menaced by climate change, Vietnam’s broad and fertile Mekong Delta ranks near the top. And yet, as I wrote for Mongabay four years ago, rising seas and changing weather patterns are not the only threats to the delta’s fabled fecundity. A spasm of ...

Rising across remote stretches of southeast Cambodia, the Cardamom Mountains harbor dense tropical rainforest, much of it native growth carpeting the range’s wet slopes. Due to its remoteness, the vast protected area has historically seen relatively little human activity, which helped safeguard crucial tracts of ...

Earlier this year, Vietnam’s prime minister called for a ban of the wildlife trade in the country in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Several months later, the government released a directive on the wildlife trade. Hailed as a ban in some media coverage, the move fell short of that, ...

Reaching down into the Malay Peninsula, Myanmar’s southern Tanintharyi region is home to rainforests that support a unique assemblage of endemic and endangered species, including the endangered Malay tapir (Tapirus indicus), critically endangered Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) and endangered lar gibbon (Hylobates lar). But the relative ...

Nestled in the far reaches of eastern Cambodia lies Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the nation’s most vital areas of protected forest and a haven for rare wildlife. Yet right now, it’s also seeing frequent visits from well-documented human predators. Exploitative agricultural companies and illegal ...

In Cambodia, the Mekong River winds past Southeast Asia’s largest remaining lowland evergreen forest before filling up Tonle Sap, the region’s largest freshwater lake. The river, lined with valuable sand, is home to an abundance of endangered species like the Mekong giant catfish and giant ...

Dealing with climate change should be a no-brainer, right? To paraphrase Greta Thunberg, the science is done and only denial, ignorance and inaction remain. Or is that really all? We live in a world of sovereign states. In none of them is it an easy matter ...

A $9.3 billion residential and tourism development has been approved within the buffer zone of the Can Gio Mangrove Biosphere Reserve here in this city of 13 million, Vietnam’s largest urban area. The project was proposed by the Can Gio Tourism Urban Area Joint Stock Company, a ...

A blue whale has a big heart the size of an adult wild yak. Everyone knows the plight of blue whales — as everyone likewise knows the plight of tigers, elephants and pandas. But few know the threats to wild yaks. And even fewer know ...