News

Perspective | Giant Catch in the Mekong Reveals Mysteries of Biodiversity Hot Spot

The Mekong River, the longest waterway in Southeast Asia, is often called the world’s most productive river because it holds a greater abundance of freshwater fish than any other river basin on the planet. From an ecological standpoint, there is one stretch of the river, in ...

Stefan Lovgren, special to Circle of Blue

Cambodia Seeks UNESCO World Heritage Status to Protect a Mekong Biodiversity Hotspot

A bold Cambodian plan to secure World Heritage status along their stretch of the Mekong, where the free-flowing river has sustained some of the world’s greatest biodiversity, could provide much-needed respite to a river in danger of dying from dams and over-exploitation, experts say. In Phnom Penh, the Environment ...

Tom Fawthrop

Cambodian leader orders Mekong safe zones to save rare dolphins

Cambodian premier Hun Sen on Monday ordered the creation of conservation zones on the Mekong river to protect critically endangered dolphins, after three were killed by fishing nets and lines last month. The Irrawaddy dolphins, known for their bulging foreheads and short beaks, once swam through ...

AFP

Cambodia starts to build bridge across Mekong River with funds from China

KRATIE, Cambodia, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) — Cambodia on Monday broke ground for the construction of a bridge across the Mekong River here in the country’s northeastern part, with funds from China. The ceremony was presided over by Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Chinese ...

Xinhua

Cambodia sentences 36 opposition officials to prison terms on conspiracy charges

A court in Cambodia on Thursday sentenced 36 senior officials of the banned Cambodia National Rescue Party, most of whom have already fled the country, to between five and seven years in prison. The opposition officials were convicted of supporting party Vice President Mu Sochua in ...

Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Eugene Whong

How the race for a Covid vaccine enriched monkey poachers and endangered macaques

Gary Tucker was attending a conference on monkeys used in medical research when he spotted some uninvited guests: agents with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  As they walked in and out of the Colorado hotel, Tucker, an executive at a monkey import company, hid in ...

Rich Schapiro, Anna Schecter, Andrew W. Lehren and Anton L. Delgado

No justice for Indigenous community taking on a Cambodian rubber baron

The mood outside the Kampong Thom Provincial Court had grown tense on the afternoon of July 26. Some 12 residents of Ngon village, an Indigenous Kuy community in Kampong Thom province’s Sandan district, waited for the judge’s verdict. The group had spent roughly $200 traveling the ...

Gerald Flynn, Vutha Srey

Cambodia’s Mekong dolphin is dying despite efforts to save it

The fishing gangs visit the river at night and the rangers do nothing to stop them. Working in large groups, the boatmen use fishing methods that have long been outlawed in this part of the mighty Mekong River like gillnetting, which uses nets that hang like ...

Saqib Rahim

Cambodian plan to allow hunting in protected areas worries conservationists

Hunting in Cambodia’s protected areas and forests would be legal in some cases under a proposal from the country’s Ministry of Environment that conservation groups fear could lead to abuses that threaten wildlife populations, according to drafts of rule changes seen by RFA.  The ministry is ...

Jack Adamović Davies

Talk but no action? Cambodian workers in Thailand see a lot of room for improvement

Thai-Cambodian discussions at the recent ASEAN summit put labour issues on the table. Despite the pleasant chat, migrant workers in Thailand have yet to see what, if any, measures the authorities will adopt to help address their problems. In a bilateral meeting on the sideline of ...

Seoung Nimol

Contact us

Contact us

Do you have questions on the content published by Open Development Mekong? We will gladly help you.

Have you found a technical problem or issue on the Open Development Mekong website?

Tell us how we're doing.

Do you have resources that could help expand the Open Development Mekong website? We will review any map data, laws, articles, and documents that we do not yet have and see if we can implement them into our site. Please make sure the resources are in the public domain or fall under a Creative Commons license.

File was deleted
ERROR!

Disclaimer: Open Development Mekong will thoroughly review all submitted resources for integrity and relevancy before the resources are hosted. All hosted resources will be in the public domain, or licensed under Creative Commons. We thank you for your support.

DEjg5
* The idea box couldn't be blank! Something's gone wrong, Please Resubmit the form! Please add the code correctly​ first.

Thank you for taking the time to get in contact!