Environment and natural resources
Biodiversity
Baby elephant, a big bundle of joy and conservation challenges
ee Pael, one of Cambodia’s few captive female elephants, lived a peaceful life in a forest sanctuary until the day a wild bull appeared, chased away her handler and ran off with Gee Pael. “I had to run up a tree,” recalled Yel Yan, the elephant’s ...
JACK BROOK
Baby dolphin born in Mekong’s Koh Phdao
The team researching the Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphins has spotted a newborn baby in Kratie province’s Sambor district, according to the Fisheries Administration’s Department of Fisheries Conservation. The department reported on March 7 that the calf was spotted by the research team and World Wide Fund ...
Abby Seiff on the Slow Death of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake
Cambodia’s Great Lake – the Tonle Sap – is in trouble. The lake and its residents face the converging impacts of global climate change, upstream hydropower dams, and illegal fishing abetted by government corruption. All have combined to threaten the lake’s nourishing flood-pulse, which for ...
Sebastian Strangio
Small Monkeys are Big Business in Cambodia's Animal Trade
Gangs of humans follow troops of monkeys in Angkor Archaeological Park. In the shadow of Bayon Temple, bloggers spend their days documenting every move the long-tailed macaques make. “I got into filming monkeys because I see them as a natural resource in Cambodia and I wanted ...
ANTON L. DELGADO
How researchers are using leeches to track rare animals in Vietnam’s mountains
For decades, scientists have struggled to find certain rare and endangered mammals in the vast Truong Son Mountain Range, which stretches from Vietnam’s northern provinces to Lam Dong Province in the Central Highlands. Now, a group of scientists has come up with a creative way ...
Le My / Tuoi Tre News
Last Irrawaddy dolphin in northeastern Cambodia dies
The last known endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin on a stretch the Mekong River near Cambodia’s border with Laos died this week, after it was reported snagged in a fishing net, wildlife officials and villagers in the Southeast Asian countries said. “We are deeply saddened by the ...
RFA Staff
Chinese dams on Mekong River endanger fish stocks, livelihoods, activists say
For Pianporn Deetes, the Mekong is more than a river. “This is not just liquid, but this is the entire life-supporting system,” Deetes, a local activist, said recently on a wooden long-tail boat heading upstream in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. The Mekong, one of the world’s longest waterways, runs about ...
Keir Simmons, Rhoda Kwan, Nat Sumon and Jennifer Jett
The Mekong keeps on yielding species new to science
The Mekong in Southeast Asia is one of the world’s mightiest rivers and scientists are still learning about its stunning biodiversity. In fact, hardly a week seems to go by without new discoveries along the river. In a series of finds, according to a report by the World ...
Daniel T Cross
In Search of Forest: How Cambodia's Protected "Flooded Forests" All but Disappeared
Long Sokha was technically farming in a flooded forest, but there was no hint of that on a recent, sun-soaked afternoon. The fields of the plot in Kampong Leng district of Kampong Chhnang province looked neat and orderly, planted with rows of rice plants soaking in ...
Andrew Haffner and Mao Sreypich
Prey Lang, Prey Preah Roka Monitors Suppressed While Tree Cover Vanishes: Report
Forest watchers in 2020 filed 90 percent fewer reports of illegal logging amid officials’ threats against community patrols, according to an international research report, as one advocate said young people were refraining from joining patrols out of fear of repercussions. Using a combination of satellite data ...
Danielle Keeton-Olsen