Environment and land
How to increase REDD+ benefits to indigenous peoples and other traditional forest communities
To meet the target of limiting global warming to 2-degrees-Celsius established in the Paris Climate Agreement, it is crucial to curb tropical deforestation and encourage the reforestation of tropical forests that have already been cut down. Not only is tropical deforestation and forest degradation the source ...
New economic models sought for sustainable development
The Asian Productivity Organization has called upon global economies to explore and adopt new business models to achieve Green Productivity and long-term business sustainability for a low-carbon future. The APO, having 20-memebr economies, including Bangladesh, made the call referring to the ‘Bangkok Outcome Document’ based on ...
Mekong River level cause for concern in Nong Khai
The Nong Khai water monitoring office under the Department of Water Resources has reported the latest height of the Mekong River at 8 meters and 63 centimeters, up by over 1 meter from the same time on September 7 and only 3.57 meters below its ...
Recycled waste-to-fertilizer plants left idle, investors flee
A series of plants making fertilizer from domestic waste have been built in recent years with ODA capital. And a lot of them, capitalized at tens or hundreds of billions of dong have been left idle. In late 2012, the Hai Duong fertilizer plant was put ...
Vietnam should not invest in steel
Former Minister of Planning and Investment, Professor Nguyen Mai, speaks to the Tuoi tre newspaper, suggesting that HSG should focus on the manufacture of high grade alloy rather than steel. Recently, the Hoa Sen Joint Stock Group made public a super project for steel production in ...
New Zealand announces UXO clearance package
New Zealand will provide US$7.2 million, one of the biggest single contributions made through the United Nations Development Programme, to Laos’ UXO sector. The funding will include trialling innovative New Zealand technology which destroys unexploded ordnance by melting casings without having to dig up or ...
Ratana decries lack of UXO aid
A top Cambodian demining official slammed US President Barack Obama’s widely heralded pledge to increase demining aid to Laos on September 6, faulting the US for what he characterised as its “marginal assistance” to Cambodia’s demining efforts. In a speech at the 2016 ASEAN Summit in ...
Indonesia to crack down on palm-oil companies burning land
Indonesia’s Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya Bakar has warned that palm-oil companies found responsible for clearing land through illegal burning – cloaking much of Southeast Asia in noxious haze each year – will be prosecuted. “If we let this carry on and don’t resolve it, ...
Southeast Asia issues a non-rebuke to China
A summit of Southeast Asian countries issued a mild rebuke of China on September 7 over its expansionist activities in the disputed South China Sea, and indirectly urged it to show restraint and not raise tensions. In a victory for Beijing’s diplomatic, economic and military clout, the ...
Laos launches SDG 18 to make lives safe from UXO
Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon September 8 inaugurated the Lao PDR’s own national Sustainable Development Goal on unexploded ordnance during the ongoing ASEAN Summits. The SDGs have been drawn up by the United Nations as targets for developing countries. Goal No. 18, which ...
