Environment and natural resources

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha last week asked reporters why non-governmental organisations, environmental activists and academics continue to protest against the planned blasting of rapids in the Mekong River. He said many of these protesters are outsiders, meaning people who do not live by the riverside, do ...

Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith has pledged to find solutions to the many land issues that have emerged and the government has formed a taskforce committee to investigate the problems and resolve them. The committee will investigate land concessions, the transfer of land use rights in ...

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has asked four central provinces to provide regular reports on marine environment quality. The provinces of Hà Tĩnh, Quảng Bình, Quảng Trị and Thừa Thiên Huế have been told that they should seriously implement the instruction to monitor ...

Some 800,000 foreign tourists last year came to Thailand with the specific purpose of visiting villages, natural sites, communities, and hilltribes across the Kingdom, while more than 2 million Thai tourists also pursued these interests. They mingled well with like-minded travellers who cherished the “ecotourism” ...

Ban Nam Chang village in Nan province has become a pioneer in tackling the seasonal haze problem in the North by changing its farming practices. With summer set to begin soon, farmers will soon be setting their fields on fire to clear land for the ...

Ten sawmills located near and inside forest areas have been closed and removed, while 18 others are in the process of being removed as part of the government’s crackdown on sawmill operations and illegal logging. The closures came after the government recently issued an order ...

In November last year, the Philippines declared its largest critical habitat yet. Located in the long, narrow Philippine island of Palawan, the new Cleopatra’s Needle Critical Habitat is spread across 41,350 hectares (more than 100,000 acres). The second largest critical habitat, Carmen Critical Habitat for ...

Government chiefs including Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha on January 31 urged the public to look at the detail of proposals by the National Reform Steering Assembly for tackling forest encroachment, saying it has merely tried to correct wrongs and not legalise wrongdoings including by resort ...

South Korea has agreed to provide more than $400 million in loans to Cambodia for infrastructure and health development. Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn and South Korean ambassador Kim Weon-jin signed two agreements at a ceremony on January 31 outlining loans that will be dispersed to ...

The Mekong Business Initiative will launch a new platform next month aimed at developing startups in the tourism sector throughout the CLMV region, which includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, a program organiser said on January 31. MBI, a program launched by the Asian Development ...