Ecosystems

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 ...

A marina developer has plans to turn one of Phuket’s few remaining mangrove forests into a new gateway for luxury yachts and cruises post the Covid-19 pandemic period. In Ao Kung, a quiet bay in the northern part of bustling Phuket island, Sujirtra Thothip stood in ...

Solving human-wildlife conflict is a complex issue and a pressing concern for a wide variety of endangered species, none more so than the Asian elephant (Elephas maximus). People living around Vietnam’s Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve, however, want to foster coexistence with elephants, not conflict. That’s ...

A dolphin calf, about two weeks old, was spotted on Sunday in one of the Mekong River’s deep pools in Kratie province by the research team of the Fisheries Administration and World Wildlife Fund (WWF), who confirmed the sixth calf recorded this year. Ouk Vibol, Director ...

Can a giant stingray in the Lower Mekong be used to craft a good narrative about Chinese upstream dams? It can, according to an unsigned Khmer Times article in June 2022 about a 300-kilogramme stingray found in Cambodia’s Stung Treng province. The article quoted Zeb Hogan, ...

Twenty years ago, Nguyen Van Liet took scientists to the wetlands near his hometown of Tram Chim on Vietnam’s Mekong Delta to find sarus cranes, a vulnerable bird species according to the IUCN Red List, native to Southeast Asia, South Asia and Australia. “We had to ...

Authorities on Phu Quoc, a popular tourist island off the coast of southern Vietnam’s Kien Giang Province, have ordered the removal of illegal constructions in the island’s protected maritime areas following the report of Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper last week. On Tuesday, Phu Quoc leaders inspected the illegal works in ...

What is ecocide? In short, ecocide refers to the mass destruction of ecosystems. Formally, it is defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. ...

Following a week of discussions and events in Lisbon, Portugal, the UN Ocean Conference concluded on July 1, with governments and heads of state agreeing on a new political declaration to “Save Our Ocean”. Recognizing the past “collective failure” in the Conference’s final declaration, world leaders ...

Abnormally high-water levels in the Mekong River at the end of May indicate that dams on the river must release less water during the dry season to protect the ecosystem, experts said at an online panel Monday.  Rain levels during the dry season this year have ...