The ASEAN Post
Cambodia’s sanctuaries under threat
Cambodia’s Beng Per Wildlife Sanctuary is symbolic of the country’s poor forestry management. Around 2,000 square kilometres (sq km) – around three times the size of Singapore – is lost to illegal logging in Cambodia every year where wildlife sanctuaries – despite their name – ...
Jason Thomas
Bangkok is sinking fast
For the more or less 10 million people living in Thailand’s capital city of Bangkok, flooding is a common and recurring phenomenon. This is partly due to the city’s geographic location at the southern end of the Chao Phraya River Basin, as well as its ...
Jason Thomas
Fighting climate change with bamboo
The world has 11 years left, as reported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to beef up its efforts to reduce global temperatures before it crosses the threshold leading to climate catastrophe. While ASEAN countries have expressed their joint commitment through national pledges to take ...
Giving a dam about the Mekong
Originating in the Tibetan highlands and running through China, Myanmar, Thailand, Lao PDR, Cambodia, and Vietnam, the Mekong and its tributaries provide water, food and income for 60 million people. The longest river in Southeast Asia is home to the world’s largest inland fishery. It ...
Sheith Khidhir
Lancang-Mekong Cooperation: Blessing or curse?
The Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) marked its third anniversary last week with the announcement that China’s trade with the five Mekong member countries – Cambodia, Lao, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam – has reached over US$260 billion for the period, highlighting the overarching role China plays in ...
Jason Thomas
ASEAN lacks crucial data on air pollution
A large portion of the population in Southeast Asia do not have proper information on the air they breathe every day. While an analysis of air pollution readings from Greenpeace and AirVisual found that 95 percent of Southeast Asian cities surveyed exceeded the World Health Organization’s ...
The high price tag of gender inequality
The Cambodian government is building a global textile industry on the backs of Cambodian women working the sewing machines on the garment factory floor. However, they are often overworked and underpaid, and rarely ever promoted to supervisory positions. Keep reading ...
ASEAN’s human trafficking woes
As most human rights defenders are already aware, Southeast Asia faces a problem when it comes to human trafficking. The United States (US) State Department’s latest annual Trafficking in Persons Report doesn’t paint a prettier picture either. Dubbed by the US State Department as the ...
Are Cambodia’s hydropower plans risky?
Along with most Southeast Asian countries, Cambodia’s electricity consumption over the past decade has skyrocketed. In a report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), electricity consumption in Cambodia has been growing rapidly, averaging 20 percent growth per annum since 2010. This rate continues to accelerate ...
Myanmar’s fading democratic sheen
When Aung San Suu Kyi and her National League of Democracy (NLD) party won the general elections in 2015, a new wave of hope swept Myanmar. Previously under a military junta for almost 50 years from 1962 to 2011, Nobel Peace Prize winner Suu Kyi ...