The Environment Ministry has ordered provincial officials to fire the Srepok Wildlife Sanctuary chief in Mondulkiri province over alleged abuses of power, including threatening local people who were collecting firewood.
Nearly 62,000 traps were removed from protected areas last year, up more than 18,000 from the year prior, the Environment Ministry said, as a conservationist estimated the total number of traps being set in the forests could be five times as high.
Residents say they have no employment opportunities in Kampong Speu’s Oral district, forcing them to log a nearby forest to earn a living, but only after paying local officials a bribe.
A logger who died in custody had no bruises as alleged and may have had mental health issues, a Pursat environmental official said of a 22-year-old man arrested for cutting trees in a protected area.
Alleging renewed large-scale illegal logging, environmentalists around the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary said authorities should take action to stop deforestation before it was too late, just as officials had reclaimed 60,000 hectares of protected flooded forests around the Tonle Sap lake.
The conference generally pitches wealthy, high-emitting and highly-industrialized nations against low-emitting and less-industrial countries, especially those in the Pacific Islands that first feel the strain of rising water levels and temperatures.
The country is seeing 100 tons of solid waste produced daily from Covid-19 quarantine and treatment centers, with 50 incinerators in 21 provincial towns specially disposing of the trash, while a Phnom Penh medical waste manager said the capital was struggling to dispose of biohazardous trash.
The Environment Ministry has told all provincial governors to immediately stop the issuing of land certificates in protected areas such as biodiversity corridors, saying 70 sanctuaries in 11 provinces were facing encroachment.
A shopping mall, hotel, casino, warehouses and mixed-use areas are proposed to be built on a wildlife sanctuary near the Vietnamese border under a request made by the Mondulkiri provincial administration to the Interior Ministry.
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.
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