Koh Kong Water Shortage Leaves Families Dry
May 16th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Climate Change, Disasters & Disaster Management, Environment & Natural Resources, Infrastructure, Lakes/Rivers, Social Concerns
Hundreds of families in Koh Kong province’s Khmara Phoumint City are suffering from a shortage of water, which is provided by a reservoir that dried up during the hot season, local officials said yesterday.
Smach Meanchey and Dang Tong communes typically receive water from the Cham Yeam reservoir in Mondol Seima district, said Pich Si Yun, provincial director of the department of industry mines and energy.
The water is channelled from the reservoir, located about 7 km from the city, to the two communes by LTP Group, a company owned by CCP Senator Ly Yong Phat, he said. …
Dang Tong commune chief Lim Dy said the problem was more serious than the provincial authorities reported. All the families in his commune-more than 2,000-have been affected by the shortage for the past two weeks, he said. …
Chhorn Chansy,
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/koh-kong-water-shortage-leaves-families-dry-24517/
Two Held For Razing Huts In Land Dispute
May 15th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Timber/Wood
Ratanakkiri provincial police on Monday arrested the chief of staff of a Vietnamese rubber concessionaire and his Cambodian translator who are believed to have burned down more than $5,000 worth of property related to a land dispute in O’Chum district, police said.
Meas Pov Bora, chief of the provincial minor crimes office, said that Vietnamese national Ngvieng Hong Fou, 30, chief of staff for a company called CRD, and his translator Sim Borin, 31, were arrested for allegedly setting fire to one house and four huts, and destroying some 200 bunches of cassava plants – alone worth $5,650 – belonging to local landowner Ly Sok Ngim. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051565632/National/two-held-for-razing-huts-in-land-dispute.html
Koh Kong cashes in on conservation
May 14th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Domestic Investment, Environment & Natural Resources, Industry, News Source, Timber/Wood, Tourism
Koh Kong province’s mangrove forests have changed from being a source of charcoal to serving tourists who help to protect their biodiversity. The forests have now become a popular destination for Cambodian tourists. …
Yem Yan, Peam Krasorb commune chief in Koh Kong, said gradually visitors have been coming from different provinces in the country.
He said Peam Krasorb community earned about 140 million riel ($35,000) from selling tickets to 40,000 visitors – Cambodian visitors pay 3,000 riel and foreigners pay 5,000 riel per day – per year in the last few years. …
Yem Yan said mangrove forests were being destroyed in the 1990s because villagers made charcoal, but since the year 2000 there has been strict protection of mangrove forests. …
Rann Reuy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051465588/Business/koh-kong-cashes-in-on-conservation.html
Egat wants coal plants in Cambodia, Myanmar, Krabi
May 13th, 2013, The Nation, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Electricity, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Foreign Investment, Hydroelectricity, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Natural Gas
Energy Minister Pongsak Ruktapongpisal has given the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) the green light to proceed with a plan to build coal-powered plants in Myanmar and Cambodia – providing Thailand with 10,000 megawatts of electricity. Egat has also been instructed to negotiate the purchase of nuclear power from China in order to bring down the cost of electricity. …
In addition, the Energy Ministry has also been discussing the possibility of investing in a coal-powered plant in Cambodia to produce 4,000MW of electricity. Thailand hopes that buying power from Cambodia will keep the domestic cost of electricity from exceeding Bt6 per unit. Egat also plans to go ahead with its coal-powered project in Krabi once it has reached an “understanding” with residents and businesses protesting against the deal. …
In addition to investing in coal-operated power plants from neighbouring countries, Egat is also looking at investing in hydro-electric power projects within the region. …
Watcharapong Thongrung
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Egat-wants-coal-plants-in-Cambodia-Myanmar-Krabi-30205968.html
Navy arrests 4 Cambodian rosewood smugglers
May 10th, 2013, Pattaya Mail, Environment & Natural Resources, International Relations, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Royal Thai Navy ships intercepted a Cambodian fishing boat illegally smuggling 10 million baht in Siamese rosewood out of the kingdom. …
The HTMS Chao Phraya staffed with military, customs and forestry office personnel captured the 18-meter-long fishing vessel carrying 296 logs in its fish holds April 28 in Rayong Bay. …
Navy officials said the smuggled logs were to be offloaded in Vietnamese waters. …
Patcharapol Panrak
http://www.pattayamail.com/localnews/navy-arrests-4-cambodian-rosewood-smugglers-25782?ref=pmci
Work underway on ‘catastrophic’ Cambodian dam
May 10th, 2013, DW, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Electricity, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Farming, Fishing, Hydroelectricity, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Social Concerns, Water
Srekor village has stood on the banks of the Se San River in northeastern Cambodia for generations. In a few years it will be gone, submerged along with more than 300 square kilometres of surrounding farmland and forest. …
For 37-year-old rice farmer Pa Tou, the future looks bleak. The relocation site set aside for them is wholly unsuitable, he complains. There is no irrigation, it is miles from the river and the ground is either rocky or covered with trees. And at this stage it has no schools, no health clinics, no pagodas and no roads. …
International Rivers, a campaigning NGO, predicts the Lower Se San 2 Dam “will have a costly, catastrophic impact on the Mekong River’s fisheries and biodiversity”. …
But media reports consistently show the government favors projects like hydropower dams and coal-fired power stations. More are likely to go ahead. On May 9, the Cambodia Daily newspaper said two more planned dams on the 3S network had been deemed economically feasible, moving them a step closer to approval. One would be a 370MW dam on the Se San River; the other a 100MW dam on the Sre Pok River. The first would flood 40 villages alone.
Meanwhile the Cambodian government has plans to build a hydropower dam on its stretch of the Se Kong River, which rises in Laos. Baran says that would block the region’s third fish highway, leaving the Mekong mainstream as the sole route for migratory species, further harming fish stocks. The rush to hydropower risks inflicting profound and irreversible damage to many more people than the residents of Srekor village.
Deutsche Welle Staff
http://www.dw.de/work-underway-on-catastrophic-cambodian-dam/a-16803423
As Phnom Penh Grows, So Does Its Sewage Problem
May 10th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Environment & Natural Resources, Industry, Infrastructure, Social Concerns
Since 1998, Phnom Penh’s population has doubled to more than 2 million. High-rise buildings have popped up in the city’s center and housing developments have been hastily erected.
Yet the city’s antiquated, decades-old drainage system has undergone little improvement in that time and experts say the rapid urban growth currently underway could outpace the drainage system’s ability to channel rain and the increasing amount of water out of Phnom Penh.
Although the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been working with City Hall since 1999 to improve the drainage system, there is still no plan to install a wastewater treatment plant in order to prevent the vast amounts of raw sewage being pumped into the city’s lakes and waterways.
Adding further complications, City Hall has no complete underground plans of the drainage network and possesses limited means to ensure that piping is properly maintained. Authorities have no data on how much sewage the city currently produces.
…
JICA is currently constructing 20 km of additional piping in central Phnom Penh. Once a toilet is flushed, the wastewater travels down the pipes, through open canals or the underground drainage system and eventually arrives in Boeng Trabek, where morning glory and lotus plants partially purify the sewage through natural process.
Plants in the reservoir absorb the discarded water’s bacterial nutrients and break down the waste before it is funneled, black and fetid, through the Boeng Trabek pumping station. The Contents are then emptied into Boeng Tampoun and finally ejected into the Tonle Bassac and Tonle Sap rivers. …
“Phnom Penh City has been developing very fast and many commercial and industrial activities have been located in the downtown and peri-urban areas and the wastewater from these activates is generally high contamination,” said Seng Solsdy, a program officer from JICA, in an email. “With this situation, the construction of a waste-water treatment plant is very important for treating the wastewater from the city before discharging it to the river and to avoid impacts on the environment and people’s health.” …
Last year, alone the total value of approved construction projects nationwide increased by 72 percent to 2.11 billion, compared to 1.23 billion in 2011. …
Noun Rithy, CEO of Bonna Realty Group, agreed that many private developments often leave the issue of drainage as an afterthought. This is coupled with the fact that municipal authorities do very few of their own checks on the drainage provisions of new projects. …
Dene-Hern Chen and Kaing Menghun, P.1
www.cambodiadaily.com
Residents Call for Foul-Smelling Factory to Move
May 10th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Environment & Natural Resources, Industry, Social Concerns
About 100 people protested Wednesday evening outside a Phnom Penh ice-making factory owned by the daughter of deputy Kompong Spue governor Tong Seng, complaining that the factory causes a bad smell and that the health of residents in Russei Keo district’s Kilometer 6 commune was suffering as a result. …
Residents say they want they want the factory moved out of the commune altogether. [District Governor] Mr. [Klaing] Hout said officials from the ministries of environment and industry mines and energy had visited yesterday to inspect the factory and promised that the bad smell and noise levels from the factory would be addressed. …
However, it is not the first time that complaints have been brought against the factory. In November, about 70 families met with factory representatives and deputy district governor Ly Rosamy, with Rosamy saying further action would be taken if the owner failed to build a wall around the factory, but no wall has been constructed. …
Kuch Naren, P.19
www.cambodiadaily.com
Ratanakkiri Hydropower Dams Deemed Economically Viable
May 9th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Hydroelectricity, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Two massive hydropower dams planned for the Mekong’s tributaries in Ratanakkiri province have been deemed economically viable by two feasibility studies conducted by a pair of giant Chinese conglomerates, a provincial industry, mines and energy official said yesterday. …
Despite the feasibility studies having been completed, local authorities yesterday said they have not received any clear information regarding the dams. Veun Sai district governor Chum Ngil said he had not been consulted about the dam’s feasibility despite a huge area being carved out of his district for a reservoir. …
Meach Mean, coordinator for the 3S Rivers Protection Network, an NGO advocating for villagers affected by the region’s planned dams, said the social and environmental impacts for the Srepok 3 and Sesan 3 dams would be huge. For example, about 40 villages will be affected by the Sean 3, he said. …
Kuch Naren and Dene-Hern Chen
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ratanakkiri-hydropower-dams-deemed-economically-viable-23116/
Firm Given Rights to All ELC Timber in Ratanakkiri
May 8th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Exports, Forests, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood, Trade
The Ministry of Agriculture has signed a deal with Try Pheap Import Export to give the firm the right to purchase all timber felled in economic land concessions (ELCs) in Ratanakkiri province, according to a letter sent from the Agriculture Ministry to the Forestry Administration in February.
Signed by Lor Raksmey, secretary-general at the Ministry of Agriculture, and sent to Forestry Administration chief Chheng Kim Sun, the letter says that the firm owned by well-connected casino, mining and agriculture mogul Try Pheap has been granted purchasing rights over timber in Ratanakkiri in order “to meet local demand and for export” and “generate royalties and dividends for the state’s budget.”
“The forestry administration will allow Try Pheap Import Export to buy wood from every economic land concession located in Ratanakkiri province,” the letter, dated February 26, reads.
Though a senior official in the province said the agreement will help improve the regulation of Ratanakkirri’s timber trade by directing felled trees through only one company, a provincial land rights monitor said the deal would create a market that encourages illegal logging and accelerate the rate at which the forest is being deforested.
Although concessionaires are required under law to log only within their ELCs and pay royalties on any timber they extract, community activists and environmental monitors have complained that many companies regularly cut down trees and systematically smuggle logs across the border to be sold in Vietnam. …
Cambodia’s government has granted ELCs in Ratanakkirri to 27 companies covering a total of 222,933 hectares, according to figures compiled from Adhoc. …
In February 2011, Prime Minister Hun Sen granted Try Pheap two 70-year leases covering 18,885 hectares within the park in Cambodia’s northeast. …
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/firm-given-rights-to-all-elc-timber-in-ratanakkiri-22788/
Work Begins on Controversial Cambodian Dam
May 7th, 2013, VOA, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Electricity, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Hydroelectricity, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Land Tenure, Water
As work begins on Cambodia’s biggest dam, those advocating against its construction have warned that the region’s rush for hydropower will have a disastrous effect on millions of people who rely on the Mekong River to survive.
Last month, workers began preparing an area in northeastern Cambodia for a huge hydropower project, the 400-megawatt Lower Se San 2 Dam. …
Scientists estimated the Lower Se San 2 Dam could reduce the total fish yield of the Mekong Basin by 9.3 percent.
“So it’s 9.3 percent of 2.1 million tons – which is a gigantic amount,” said Baran. “In other words, this expected loss represents around 200,000 tons per year, which is much more than the whole marine sector of Australia. And, nine times more than the annual inland fish catch in Germany or the U.S.” …
Meanwhile, work on the Lower Se San 2 Dam has started and thousands of people who live in the areas that will be submerged by the dam’s vast 300-square-kilometer reservoir have been told they will have to move. …
One of them is 37-year-old Pa Tou. He said none of the 400 ethnic minority families in Srekor village on the banks of the Se San River wants to leave. …
Pa Tou, who has three daughters, said that will not be possible at the relocation site, which is miles from the river. He said the land there is poor for farming – most of it is rocky or covered with trees – and there are no health clinics and no schools. He fears they will all be left much worse off.
Robert Carmichael
http://www.voanews.com/content/work-begins-on-controversial-hydropower-dam/1656035.html
Police seize illegal rosewood; suspect escapes
May 6th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Timber/Wood
Nearly a tonne of rosewood was uncovered in a raid yesterday in Kampong Speu in which the suspect successfully fled after injuring an officer, police officials said. …
“According to the quality assessment, I can say a rough value of that rosewood is $300,000,” he [Keo Pisey, provincial police chief] said. “Now, we will continue to investigate and search to arrest him and his accomplices, because I think that case involves not only him.”
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050665423/National/police-seize-illegal-rosewood-suspect-escapes.html
Village patrols seize land-clearing tools
May 6th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Timber/Wood
Jarai villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district escalated the defense of their protected land this weekend, confiscating the keys and batteries of bulldozers owned by the Vietnamese company they claim has been illegally clearing the area, community leaders said yesterday.
The move comes after a number of protests in recent weeks at two villages in the district against a firm known as Company 72 that is working in an economic land concession area granted to conglomerate Men Sarun Co., Ltd. …
Phak Seangly and May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050665426/National/village-patrols-seize-land-clearing-tools.html
Cambodia’s Excess Baggage
May 4th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Disasters & Disaster Management, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Infrastructure, Social Concerns
“I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t going expecting to look out the bus window and see all the blue bags along the roads and in the fields,” said 27-year-old Christopher Convery, who is currently backpacking for the first time in Cambodia. …
In 2010, Mr. Hun Sen lambasted the widespread use of plastic bags as a principle cause of flooding in Phnom Penh. Meetings were called, supermarkets were advised and appeals were made for the public to be educated about throwing away non-biodegradable waste that blocks the city’s drainage pipes. It spurred the then Phnom Penh governor Kep Chuktema to authorize police to fine people who they saw littering.
“Every day now we are issuing fines of up to 20,000 reil [about $5] to individuals and vendors,” said Em Sambath, chief of municipal public order, who adds that fines total about 2 million reil, or about $500 a month, which goes into the municipal budget. …
The government has made some progress in the past few years to reduce flooding in Phnom Penh, notably with a $350-million dollar drainage system funded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). …
“The current [drainage] project we are assisting will finish in 2015 and is still ongoing…[it] will take some time for the system to be fully effective,” said Seng Solady, programme officer for JICA, “But we still consider garbage as a problem for Phnom Penh’s drainage system.”
The environmental implications of such consumption are well documented: Each plastic bag can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade and as they do, they clog and contaminate soil, waterways and choke or poison animals. …
Tourism is also potentially suffering, with all the discarded rubbish leaving a negative impression on visitors that Cambodia is a dirty place. …
Implementing a tax on plastic bags to encourage people to reuse is another [alternative] answer. The Ministry of Environment is currently working with the Ministry of Tourism to get retailers to charge 500 reil for each plastic bag by 2015, according to Mr. Sam An at City Hall. …
Simon Henderson and Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/selected-features/cambodias-excess-baggage-22003/
RCAF Denies Clearing Carbon-Trade Forest
May 3rd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, International Relations, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
A Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RACF) official in Oddar Meanchey province said he would be happy to meet with community forestry members who say that new military bases are threatening their plans to sell millions of dollars worth of carbon credits to foreign companies in return for protecting the environment. …
Yesterday, Major General San Sear, deputy commander of intervention infantry for RCAF’s Division II, which oversees the area … denied the widespread forest clearance that members of the forestry network have accused the military of. …
“Our soldiers do not cut down the trees inside the protected forests because we also need the trees to give us shade,” he said. “There are no RCAF soldiers who have engaged in logging and deforestation.”
Maj. Gen. Sear said orders from the highest levels of government had been given to set up bases in the protected forest zone, which runs along Cambodia’s contentious border with Thailand.
Mr. [Sar] Thlai [head of the community forest network area], said locals found out about yet another military base in another forest when a group of soldiers forced a community patrol team to give up a cache of wood and chainsaws it had recently seized from illegal loggers.
At a meeting with local military officials about a year ago, the military said it was taking over 2,500 hectares in two of those forests, Mr. Thlai said. …
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rcaf-denies-clearing-carbon-trade-forest-21777/
Pushing the ELC envelope
May 3rd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Foreign Investment, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav are all subsidiaries of HAGL, according to the company’s 2012 annual report.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas and Hoang Anh Lumphat’s concessions lie inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which rights groups have said is being decimated by illegal loggers who then bring the wood onto company land.
Very similarly named companies – including one called Hoang An Andong Meas, which has a 9,775-hectare concession inside Virachey National Park – operate elsewhere in the province.
Article 59 of the Land Law stipulates individuals or legal entities controlled by the same person cannot hold more than 10,000 hectares of ELCs, even if it is spread over multiple concessions. …
Phak Seangly and Shane Warrel
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050365405/National/pushing-the-elc-envelope.html
Mekong forest facing sharp decline: WWF
May 3rd, 2013, Channel News Asia, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Economics, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Farming, Fishing, Forests, Hydroelectricity, Lakes/Rivers, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
BANGKOK: Demand for farmland may strip the Greater Mekong region of a third of its remaining forest cover over the next two decades without swift government action, a leading conservation group warned Thursday.
Forests are being cleared for commodities such as rubber and rice while illegal logging is decimating many protected zones, WWF said in a report, adding a contentious dam on Mekong river will deepen already severe ecosystem damage.
“The Greater Mekong is at a crossroads,” said Peter Cutter of the WFF, adding Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar lost between 22-24 percent of their forests from 1973 — the first point of available data — to 2009, while 43 percent of woodland was stripped from Thailand and Vietnam. …
The US$3.8 billion hydroelectric project, which is due to be completed in around five years, has sharply divided the four Mekong nations — Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. …
AFP
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/mekong-forest-facing-sharp-decline-wwf/661574.html
Report Says Quarter of Forests Have Been Cleared in 40 Years
May 2nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Cambodia has lost almost a quarter of its forests in the past 40 years due to rapid development and China’s demand for timber, according to a new report released yesterday by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) on the Greater Mekong Region.
Looking at five countries in the Mekong Region- Cambodia, Laos, Burma, Thailand and Vietnam- WWF has calculated, using data from both satellite analysis and U.N. country reports, that almost a third of the region’s forests have been destroyed. Titled Ecosystems in the Greater Mekong Region, the report says that the presence of primary forest is “extremely low” in Cambodia, and only approximately 10 million hectares of forest cover remain in the county.
According to Agence Kampuchea Presse, Prime Minister Hun Sen said this week that 1.5 million hectares of forest cover has been used for economic land concessions, while there remains 9.5 million hectares of forest cover left in the country. However since 1.2 million hectares of these concessions have been allocated for rubber plantations, Mr. Hun Sen said that these land grants, in fact constitute forest cover …
Dene-Hern Chen, P.18
www.cambodiadaily.com
Illegal Logging Threatens UN’s Carbon Trading Project
May 2nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
The military’s ongoing clearing of community forests in Oddar Meanchey province risks derailing Cambodia’s first forest-based carbon trading scheme backed by the U.N., according to the latest assessment of the project.
Community forest groups, who stand to earn millions from the project, said on Wednesday that they have proposed a meeting with officials at the provincial government’s headquarters in Samraong City for Wednesday in order to discuss illegal logging in the area.
Members of the network of 13 community forests that make up the 68,000-hectare project area have been complaining about the illegal for years and more recently about a proliferation of military bases in the forests. …
With the potential risks down the line, and more projects from REDD- a U.N. sponsored initiative for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation- in the works around Cambodia, the outcome of the project in Oddar Meanchey could prove critical. …
As part of the REDD initiative, the project aims to convince western companies looking to offset their carbon emission to pay for the carbon the community forests will keep locked in the trees. The scheme only works, of course if the trees remain standing.
Sa Thlai, who heads the provinces community forest network, has been warning that military bases have been “destroying” the project for months, and that more than half of one of the 13 forests had already been felled. …
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/illegal-logging-threatens-uns-carbon-trading-project-21395/
Tales of intimidation
May 1st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Timber/Wood
When activists Mom Sakin and Sorn Siyan took a stand against illegal logging in Kratie province last month, they were allegedly threatened with violence and lawsuits from officials.
“Powerful people who wanted to intimidate us shot their guns into the air to prevent us from going into the forest,” Sakin, a member of the provincial branch of the Community Peace Network, said yesterday. …
Stories like these are becoming more frequent among human rights defenders and activists, particularly those seeking to counter illegal logging, rights group Adhoc said yesterday.
“So far in 2013, 48 [human rights defenders] and activists have been threatened for their work relating to the protection of environmental and natural resources,” Adhoc said in a statement. “Those working to protect poorer Cambodians against rights abuses have repeatedly found themselves threatened and intimidated by the authorities, often at the bequest of rich and well-connected business figures.” …
Chhay Channyda and Shane Worrell
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050165357/National/tales-of-intimidation.html