Environment and natural resources
Climate Change is causing dire consequences for the Greater Mekong region
The consequences of climate change is getting worse as each day passes. From shrinking ice caps to drawn out drought seasons, it seems that every country across the globe has experience some sort of impact from the drastic changes in weather patterns. And one of climate change’s victims, Southeast Asia’s ...
Mae Yen Yap
Freshwater dolphins in the Mekong are benefitting from better protection
Irrawaddy dolphins are curious creatures in more ways than one. They are curious by nature and look curious too. Instead of having long bottle-like nostrums like their relatives living in the seas, these freshwater mammals sport snub noses with bulging foreheads. They look a bit ...
Darunee Sukanan
Plundering Cambodia's Forests
Under a rickety wooden stilt house near Cambodia’s Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary, one of the country’s leading environmental campaigners is preparing dinner. Ouch Leng stuffs raw meat into an empty beer can and throws it into the fire. It’s a poor man’s feast for his team ...
At a Cambodian Lake, a Climate Crisis Unfolds
When I first met Ly Heng in May 2016, the forest behind his house was still smoldering — the remnants of the worst drought to hit Southeast Asia in decades. Heng lived along a small river at the top of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake, in a protected ...
Abby Seiff
Mekong Delta agriculture adapts to climate change
The Mekong Delta has restructured agriculture towards climate-change adaptation and market demand by establishing specialised farming areas for its key agricultural products, and by growing other crops on ineffective rice fields or rotating rice with other crops on the same field. The delta, the country’s largest rice, seafood ...
Cambodia's lifeline threatened as Mekong recedes to historic low
As world leaders meet in New York from Monday to discuss the global challenge of climate change, thousands of kilometres away people in Cambodia are grappling with dramatic changes to the country’s ecosystem, including the lowest water levels in the crucially-important Mekong River ever recorded. The United Nations Development Programme, ...
Andrew Nachemson
Reacting to reform: Cambodia’s environment: Triumph or tyranny?
Cambodia’s new environmental policies are promising, but they also signal a government agenda to consolidate power over the country’s forests, Sarah Milne writes. In 2016, Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen announced a dramatic suite of jurisdictional and policy reforms that will affect how land and forests are governed ...
Sarah Milne
Vietnam consuming natural resources faster than in 2018
Vietnam will use up its ‘quota’ of annual natural resources for this year in October, two months earlier than it did last year. This assessment is based on the Earth Overshoot Day (EOD) concept, which marks the date when humanity’s annual demand on nature exceeds what ...
Minh Nga
Briefing note provides new insights on small and micro-sized entities in the Mekong forestry sector
Little is known about the small and micro-sized entities (SmEs) engaged in the forestry sector in the Mekong region, their characteristics, the number and gender of people involved in the businesses, their supply chains and levels of compliance with regulations. A new briefing published by ...
Confronting the new climate reality in Asia and the Pacific
ON Monday, world leaders will gather at the UN in New York for the Climate Action Summit. Their goal is simple – to increase ambition and accelerate action in the face of a mounting climate emergency. For many this means ambition and action that enables countries to ...