Channel News Asia

Thai authorities have reached an agreement with a landless community that will allow villagers to live in a mangrove forest if they help protect the area, a unique collaboration that could work across the country, land rights groups said. Under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between ...

Dams are infrastructures built to control river flow and store large amounts of water in artificial lakes or reservoirs.  They are used not only for agricultural water supply and flood control, but also to produce electricity. The water released from dams flows through turbines, whose mechanical ...

When devastating floods ruined Sumroeng Sunthonsaeng’s fruit orchards in 2011, he vowed to stay on the land. He changed the direction of his business, focusing on lucrative and prized durians, long famous in the Nonthaburi area, a neighbouring province of Bangkok. Last year, he was eyeing a ...

The Thai government has thrown its weight behind a large industrial city project in a coastal area in southern Songkhla. But it is opposed by locals who fear a devastating impact on their hometown. CHANA, Thailand: For Khairiyah Rahmanyah, the sea is life.  She was born and ...

Thailand’s Environment Minister has warned that urgent action is needed to rebalance humans’ relationship with nature, or mankind may not live into the next century. In an address to diplomats, politicians and journalists on Friday (Aug 7), Mr Varawut Silpa-archa compared the challenges of fighting the ...

Preventing the further destruction of Southeast Asia’s forests will be a critical step to stopping the spread of future deadly viruses similar to COVID-19, according to leading experts studying the risk factors that have contributed to the current global pandemic. Over the past four decades, swathes of ...

Incomplete and prospective hydropower dam projects in Southeast Asia, particularly along the Mekong River and its tributaries, are at risk of major delays and shutdowns as the COVID-19 pandemic impacts major industries, energy markets and worker safety. The government of Laos has already ordered a temporary ...

A group of Myanmar satirists on Monday (Nov 18) racked up a second prison sentence for a performance that criticised the military, a decision the artists said showed the judges were “puppets” of the military. The group of seven, known as the Peacock Generation, were arrested ...

LOEI, Thailand: The once-mighty Mekong river has been reduced to a thin, grubby neck of water in stretches of northern Thailand – record lows blamed on drought and a recently completed dam far upstream. The US$4.47 billion Thai-owned Xayaburi hydro-electric power plant went into operation this ...

An unusually long period of drought brought water levels to some of the lowest measurements in recent years. There are fears that the drought will have a particularly negative effect on the Tonle Sap River, connecting the Mekong to Cambodia’s Great Lake and which plays a ...