Environment and natural resources

How Solar Could Save The Mekong

A simple feasibility analysis shows the Mekong River in Cambodia would benefit from floating solar plants coupled with storage, rather than more hydro. Cambodia’s Great Lake, the Tonle Sap and Vietnam’s Mekong Delta are suffering harmful impacts from the suppression of the Mekong River’s annual flood ...

Deteriorating Mekong ecosystem alarms activists

Environment advocates are voicing concerns over the Mekong River’s deteriorating ecosystem, especially with more projects set to affect the waterway in the pipeline. “If these so-called development projects continue, especially the construction of more dams, the Mekong will face a crisis,” said Niwat Roi-kaeo, president of ...

Wassayos Ngamkham

Mekong water turns greenish-blue in Nakhon Phanom

Water in the Mekong river in this northeastern border province has turned from yellowish-brown to greenish-blue — a strange phenomenon that makes the river look beautiful but could be a sign of danger, according to a local media report. The water in the Mekong river is ...

Pattanapong Sripiachai

Threatened by deforestation, Cambodia loses 26 per cent of its forests in 43 years

Growing demand for timber as construction material, fuel and charcoal is devastating Cambodia’s forests. In 1975, the latter covered 73 per cent of the country’s surface; last year it was down to only 46.84 per cent. Cambodia’s forests – evergreen, semi-evergreen, deciduous and dry dipterocarp forests, ...

Exhibition highlighting biological resources of Mekong region opens

A special exhibition highlighting the rich ecology surrounding the Mekong region and various uses of the biological resources, such as in skin care and cosmetic products, commemorating the 1st Mekong-ROK Summit in Busan that opened Wednesday for a monthlong run. “Life on the Mekong; Connecting People, ...

Dams and Climate Change Kill the Mekong

The swirling currents of the once mighty Mekong, shrunk by drought and increasingly crippled by dams point towards an unprecedented crisis of water governance along the more than 4,900 kilometers of southeast Asia’s longest river. “This is the worst ecological disaster in history of the Mekong,” declared ...

Tom Fawthrop

7kg plastic waste found in dead wild deer

The stomach of a wild deer discovered dead in the Khun Sathan National Park in northern Nan province was found to contain seven kilogrammes of plastic waste, along with underwear. The office of the national park reported on Monday that park rangers found the adult deer ...

Apinya Wipatayotin

Illegal timber and vehicles seized in three provinces

Forestry administration and other related authorities seized a large amount of illegal timber and a number of vehicles, including boats, used for transporting timber. Kratie province’s Sambor district Military Police commander Sum Sokunthea told The Post on Sunday that anti-natural resource crime forces had patrolled the ...

Khouth Sophak Chakrya

China’s dam-building programme must take neighbours into account

The building of large dams has increasingly run into opposition in established democracies but gained momentum in autocratic states, which often tout their benefits for combating droughts and water shortages. But, as the Mekong basin illustrates, giant upstream dams can contribute to river depletion and ...

Brahma Chellaney

Southeast Asia and the right to safe water

On 6 November, the Mekong River Commission acknowledged that climate change had exacerbated this year’s wildly varying water levels on the Mekong – which saw the mighty river reduced to a trickle in parts, even during the rainy season. But the main contributor, it said, ...

Sam Geall

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