News

COVID or not, ‘the desire to eat wildlife’ continues in Asia

Continuing attempts to curb the sale of wild animals and their meat have failed to engender change at wet markets in the Asia Pacific, even as the region struggles to contain the largest and deadliest wave of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic. According to ...

Ian Lloyd Neubauer

Forest loss in mountains of Southeast Asia accelerates at ‘shocking’ pace

Southeast Asia is home to roughly half of the world’s tropical mountain forests. These highland ecosystems support massive carbon stores and tremendous biodiversity, including a host of species that occur nowhere else on the planet. But new evidence suggests these havens are in grave danger. ...

Carolyn Cowan

Chinese private security presence is growing in Southeast Asia, report finds

Chinese businesses with risky investments in Southeast Asia’s Mekong region are increasingly turning to legal, China-based private security companies for protection, according to a new report. The Washington-based Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) found that China-based companies account for 29 of the 49 foreign private ...

Joshua Berlinger

OPINION: A year since the transient worker Covid crisis: Lessons for Southeast Asia

April marked the one-year anniversary since most countries in the world went into some form of lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19. The pandemic first and foremost has exposed gaps in current labour practices towards low-skilled transient (migrant) workers across Southeast Asia, particularly in Singapore, ...

FANZURA BANU AND SHEE SIEW YING

Southeast Asia remains a hot spot for plastic pollution

Southeast Asia has emerged as a hot spot for plastic pollution because of rapid urbanization and a rising middle class , whose consumption of plastic products and packaging is growing due to their convenience and versatility. But local waste management infrastructure has not kept pace, resulting in ...

Victoria Kwakwa

Can the EU's climate change plan work in Southeast Asia?

After the European Union became a “strategic partner” of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc in December 2020, both blocs pledged to make climate change policy a key area of cooperation. The EU, already the largest provider of development assistance to the ASEAN region, has committed ...

David Hutt

OPINION: UN SDG goals boost access to justice

How do we counter massive pollution on land, at sea and in the air? How do we ensure justice for human rights defenders who are attacked when defending the environment? How do we promote more inclusion and participation in decision-making processes? The 17 United Nations-backed Sustainable ...

VITIT MUNTARBHORN

Are Southeast Asia’s cyber defenses vulnerable to Chinese attacks?

A telecom firm in the Philippines recently hired the services of a United States-based cybersecurity firm to shore up its defenses against the potential threats of spying by China. It became the latest in a string of Southeast Asian corporations to have engaged a cybersecurity firm to strengthen ...

Umair Jamal

Covid-19 measures leave Southeast Asia’s migrant workers exposed, lay bare their living conditions

Job loss, crowded quarters and reduced access to healthcare are among the issues foreign workers face. Advocacy groups say the pandemic can only be controlled with an inclusive approach that protects every individual’s rights to life and health. The spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus among Singapore’s migrant ...

Neo Chai Chin

'Barbaric' snares are wiping out Southeast Asia's wild animals

Across Southeast Asia, wild animals are being hunted out of existence to feed growing demand for bushmeat, according to conservationists. Thomas Gray, science director with conservation group Wildlife Alliance, which operates in Cambodia, says that snares — simple traps made of wire and rope — have become the single biggest ...

Sarah Lazarus

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.

pWYsn
* 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!