UPDATED 12:26 p.m. — Three Mother Nature environmentalists were sentenced to jail for 18 to 20 months for incitement over their activism, while two others, including the group’s founder, were also found guilty in absentia.
Nine years to the day after environmentalist Chut Wutty was shot dead while investigating illegal logging in Koh Kong province, activists vowed to continue his work and keep watch over the country’s dwindling forests.
Brick walls and barbed wire divide Pu Rang village now, says Tha Vy. When an outsider buys up the peak of a hillside, the local predominantly Bunong residents often can no longer even get to their traditional farmlands.
Illegally felled timber is still flowing through provinces despite travel bans and increased scrutiny of traffic due to the Covid-19 outbreak, activists alleged, raising suspicions of officials’ involvement in the trade.
New data from an international forest monitoring program shows a slight increase in deforestation in Cambodia last year, with new spots of forest clearing moving deeper into Cambodia’s remaining dense forests.
Three youth activists for environmental group Mother Nature stood firm in the closing of their incitement trial on Thursday as the presiding judge pressed them that the group’s Facebook page was illegal, the government filling in lakes would improve traffic, and the activists’ research was insufficient.
Three communes in Kampot province have been turned into “Bokor city,” a new administrative area slated to become the province’s second municipality located in the midst of the 150,000-hectare Preah Monivong Bokor National Park.
In an open letter, forestry activists said they were “appalled” by USAID recently claiming to “work directly” with them, saying they had been turned down from participating in USAID-run conservation projects, and the American agency “never supported us.”
A new report from the Prey Lang Community Network links increasing deforestation in the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary to a yearlong ban on independent patrols, as forest activists were this year again stopped from activities in the forest and conducting their annual tree-blessing ceremony.
A major Phnom Penh lake development involving several oknha and senators threatens livelihoods and wetlands, as well as rivers with sewage contamination, and puts 1 million people at risk of flooding, the U.N. said in a letter to the Cambodian government — which in turn responded with seven pages summarizing assessments of the development.
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