Environment and land
Credit growth starts to cool off
New data released by Cambodia’s independent credit reporting agency indicate a significant slowdown in the rate of lending during the second quarter of the year, a sign that banking industry experts claim is due to a tightening of lending criteria and less seasonal demand from ...
Meet the pangolin, the most poached mammal in the world
As the congress of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources gets underway Thursday in Hawaii, environmental policymakers and conservation experts will discuss managing the environment, protecting wildlife and how best to chart the direction of conservation efforts. High on the agenda and among the most anticipated species up for ...
Melting glaciers may impact hydropower plans
The World Water Week has put the focus back into shrinking glaciers but the jury is still out on the impacts they will have on the flow in snow-fed rivers and hydropower generation. Glaciers are retreating due to climate change. What does that mean for water ...
Safety debate erupts after Vietnam facility caught ripening durians with chemicals
Debate has raged in Vietnam over the use of legal chemicals to artificially ripen fruits, after a facility in the Central Highlands province of Lam Dong was caught ripening numerous immature durians this way last week. On September 1, an inspection team raided a fruit facility ...
Mekong Delta region awaits floods
The Mekong Delta, the rice, seafood and fruit granary of the country, is facing landslides and sinking, as it no longer receives enough silt because of limited floodwaters. “We have been living here for several generations and we have never seen such poor floodwaters until the ...
Oil, gas production not expected before 2018
Cambodia’s oil and gas reserves will not see any production until at least 2018, according to a report by London-based BMI. “A deferral of development at Kris Energy’s Block A, which is the most progressive development in the country, prompted us to remove our forecast of ...
Myanmar forest-cutting continues despite government efforts
The hills of northern Myanmar’s Sagaing region were so legendarily thick with forests that in the days of kings, condemned criminals were ordered into the woods as a death sentence. Today illegal logging has left vast swaths of bare patches, with only a handful of old-growth ...
As Budget Drops, Commission Prepares for New Laos Dam
The Mekong River Commission is still reeling from the blowback over its handling of the consultation process around the Don Sahong and Xayaburi dams in Laos, both of which are expected to have severe environmental consequences on those living downstream. Now, with its budget slashed—its funding ...
More than a thousand furniture plants ordered to shut down
The government has ordered some 1,154 family-unit furniture plants across the country to shut down their illegal operations, a government spokesman announced on September 1. Additionally, more than 20 wood processing plants located in or near conservation and protected forests areas were also ordered to close ...
Climate change could cause rice prices to nearly double by 2030: study
Climate change is threatening the Cambodian rice industry, and it is marginalised communities that will be worst affected unless the government takes action, according to a new study. The study’s authors, Sokuntheavy Hong and Jun Furuya, took historical climatic, socioeconomic and rice-yield data as their benchmark, ...
