Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary lost a record-breaking amount of tree cover last year, shedding patches of forest larger than the size of Phnom Penh’s Olympic Stadium football pitch for every hour of 2019, data compiled from satellite images shows.
Activists traveling from Koh Kong — first by bicycle, then by foot — aim to complete their protest journey calling for a new protected area by taxi after authorities stopped them in their tracks on Thursday for the second time while en route to Phnom Penh.
More than 200 indigenous people in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district protested on Tuesday for access to farmland inside a wildlife sanctuary, which the Environment Ministry banned them from last month, citing conservation laws.
Forestry watchdogs say they have seen increased logging activity in the Prey Lang sanctuary, especially after independent forest patrollers were stopped by authorities from entering, but officials have defended their ban on unregistered forest patrols.
The Environment Ministry has accused a forestry patrol group of illegally monitoring a protected forest, drawing criticism from civil society organizations who say the ministry has violated the group’s rights and restricted its conservation efforts.
The Environment Ministry and local authorities on Friday prevented hundreds of environmental rights advocates and others from entering the Prey Lang protected area for an annual forest conservation event set for the weekend, a ministry spokesman and rights group said.
Three-hundred chainsaws confiscated from illegal loggers have been disassembled into pieces and reconstructed into a metallic elephant sculpture that authorities hope will raise awareness about conservation.
Environment Ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra on Monday reiterated earlier government statements that 83 shipping containers packed with plastic refuse and left at the Sihanoukville port since last year came from the U.S. and Canada — despite Canada saying on Friday that the containers weren’t theirs.
The first 14 out of 83 containers of plastic waste imported to the country, supposedly from the U.S. and Canada, have been sent back to their countries of origin, the customs department said.
Street vendors of all stripes around Phnom Penh manufacturing districts say their small businesses are becoming nearly impossible to sustain, one of the many knock-on effects of a decline in the country’s garment industry amid the global pandemic.
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