Environment and natural resources
NLD urged to make environment a focus
After five years in which the government had concentrated on economic reforms, it was now time to protect the neglected environment, activists say. Speaking at a 25 November conference on environmental laws organised by the Myanmar Alliance for Transparency and Accountability, participants said the incoming government ...
Mekong yields first giant catfish of year
One of the largest and rarest freshwater fish in the world was netted by local fishermen near Phnom Penh earlier this month. A two-metre Mekong giant catfish, weighing an estimated 90 to 114 kilos, one of only a handful left of a species that faces extinction, ...
Vietnam businesses pushed to save energy
With many companies in Vietnam remaining energy inefficient, the demand for consultation on energy saving solutions is high. The Ho Chi Minh City Energy Conservation Centre, for instance, has been offering consultation to more than 200 companies a year. Keep reading ...
Laos counts the cost of climate change: record floods, drought and landslides
Villagers in Namai, central Laos, are unanimous in saying that the greatest threat facing Namai now is natural disaster – in the form of cyclones, storms, floods and drought. Over the past 10 years, say village leaders, they have seen record floods, droughts and landslides, ...
Thailand aims to cut emissions 25%
Thailand will clarify its commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20-25% within 2030 at the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP 21, in Paris next month. Prasert Sirinapaporn, director of Climate Change Management and the Coordination Division of the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental ...
Cambodia at high risk of natural disasters
A report released on 23 November by the United Nations and the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters shows that Cambodia’s population is among the world’s 10 most affected by natural disasters. Published on Monday, The Human Cost of Weather Related Disasters considers 20 years ...
Mekong province seeks $6.7m from government to check coastal erosion
Ca Mau, which once benefited from coastal accretion, is now asking for US$6.7 million from the government to deal with relentless erosion. Vietnam’s southernmost province has a coastline of more than 250 kilometers and the sea has eaten along 80 percent of it, by 50 meters ...
New waste transfer station to open in Vientiane
A Japanese grant aid project will see the operation of a new waste transfer station in Vientiane and the addition of 70 new garbage trucks, to be put to use in the capital as well as Luang Prabang and Xayaboury provinces. Director General of the Department ...
Vietnamese youngsters learn about climate change
For over a year,13-year-old Nguyen Thi Anh Duong has used leftover food or trash to make organic fertilisers for growing vegetables in order to reduce pollution. That was what she learned from a three-month on-site training course on climate change for children, organised by the Center ...
690 million children at risk from climate change: UNICEF
Nearly 690 million of the world’s 2.3 billion children live in areas most exposed to climate change, facing higher rates of death, poverty and disease from global warming, the UN children’s agency said 24 November. Almost 530 million children live in countries hardest-hit by high floods ...
