Environment and natural resources

The depletion of mangroves in southern Myanmar is impacting local fisheries near the island villages and playing havoc with the mangrove forest that protect the coastline from extreme weather events. The illegal charcoal trade persists due to a lack of law enforcement and oversight in Myanmar ...

The toughening of China’s policies in the South and East China Seas is widely regarded as a defining characteristic of Xi Jinping’s foreign policy. But while it is true that the PRC has become more assertive in its maritime disputes under Xi, China had already ...

The waters of the South China Sea face environmental peril that is ‘inseparable from the territorial disputes that plague it’. As claimants solidify their positions through artificial island construction, with China driving the most ambitious builds, habitats with wide-ranging ecological and economic value are being ...

Due to a prolonged drought, seawater has intruded deep into rivers in the Mekong Delta, leaving thousands of households facing a water shortage. Freshwater is sold in certain areas for VND200,000 ($8.6) per cubic metre, and local authorities use tanker trucks to deliver water to households.  For ...

A STRONGER political will is required to take action against monoculture corn cultivation both inside Thailand and in neighbouring countries, or the transboundary haze problem will never be solved, environmental experts said, as Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai district continues to choke under hazardous smog. Greenpeace said ...

Hundreds of indigenous Karen people in Thailand face evictions from a national park that authorities wish to turn into a World Heritage Site, joining millions in a similarly precarious situation as authorities worldwide push tough conservation laws. The Kaeng Krachan is Thailand’s biggest national park, sprawled ...

An old friend of Thailand has returned from the sea, but vast drifts of plastic block more leatherback turtles from coming ashore to spawn. The news from Kuek Kak Beach on the Phang-nga coast in mid-February delighted marine ecologist Dr Thon Thamrongnawasawat as twenty newly hatched ...

The Mekong Butterfly had a heart-to-heart talk with 6 people of the Mekong — they are from 6 different communities in Thailand located on the Mekong riverbank. Despite informal atmosphere, topics of the discussion were very earnest around problems they have been facing from irregular ...

I was on a 3-month bike ride across five countries of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand , Cambodia and Nepal, to challenge the everyday use of plastic through an activity called Plogging – a mix of jogging and picking up trash.  Dwarfed by the five-feet jumble of trash ...

The water tastes salty and the rice barely grows in the coastal villages of the Ca Mau peninsula at the southern tip of Vietnam’s Mekong River delta. Thi Tran, a young woman who farms 2 acres (0.8 hectares) of rice and vegetables while her husband works ...