EdC Appeals For Public to Unplug In Power Crisis
March 29th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Electricity, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Hydroelectricity, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Social Concerns
Cambodia’s national electricity provider yesterday appealed to the public to unplug from the national energy supply in an effort to alleviate chronic seasonal power shortages that are causing blackouts across Phnom Penh and the rest of the country.
Eletricite du Cambodge (EdC) published an announcement asking people with back-up generators- most likely businesses- to use their own power supplies so that electricity could be freed up for the rest of the population. …
Last week, the Edc said that the 190-megawatt Kamchay dam in Kampot province- Cambodia’s only large-scale online hydropower dam- was operating at only 10 percent capacity due to a lack of water, which was a significant cause of the blackouts. …
Cambodia’s steady economic growth has caused a spike in demand, and electricity shortages have been compounded, according to the announcement, by a shortfall in the amount of energy Vietnam had promised to sell to Cambodia.
“Of the 250 Megawatts promised to us by Vietnam, only 170 megawatts were made available due to Vietnam’s own shortages,” the statement says.
Any demands the EdC is making on the public to switch off power are short-term, it said, as a new coal-fired power plant in Preah Sihanouk province is planned to go online in June, while the rainy season will refill hydropower capacity. …
In the meantime, the EdC said it is taking its own steps, including increasing the operating times of the Kamchay dam and Kompong Speu’s Kirirom dam. It will purchase more electricity in the next few days from Thailand.
“We are getting 15 megawatts from Thailand to supply Phnom Penh,” the announcement says, adding that it hoped in the next week to buy another 10-megawatts from neighboring countries, and to add a further 10-megawatts before Khmer News Year in April. …
Phorn Bhopa and Simon Hernderson, P.1
www.cambodiadaily.com
Kratie cut to shreds
March 29th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, News Source, Timber/Wood
‘I heard a f—ing crazy dog say that we can’t dock in Kampong Saom, but we definitely can do that,” a crackling voice declares boisterously.
The speaker, captured in video obtained by the Post, is part of an illegal timber syndicate. …
The identity of the speaker is unknown and he could be anywhere in the country – indeed, this type of luxury wood harvesting is happening all over Cambodia.
But nowhere is it more blatantly visible than along the national roads, endlessly lined with rubber plantations, that bisect the northeastern provinces of Kratie, Mondulkiri and Ratanakkiri.
From the sky, it is clear that the multi-million dollar timber trade has already decimated Kratie’s 75,089 hectare Snuol Wildlife Sanctuary.
Imagery from two of NASA’s Landsat satellites compiled by the Post from photos snapped between 2009 and 2013 suggests that about 60 per cent of the entire sanctuary’s evergreen forest has become cleared land. …
David Boyle and May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032964752/National/kratie-cut-to-shreds.html
European Lawmakers Press for Probe of Land Concessions
March 28th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economics, Environment & Natural Resources, Industry, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood, Trade
Lawmakers from the European Union (E.U) are again urging the block’s trade commissioner to investigate Cambodia’s Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) over a raft of alleged rights abuses and consider revoking the duty free access their owners currently enjoy to member states. …
Going mostly to industrial scale agri-business outfits at thousands of hectares at a time, the concessions have taken center stage as the country’s most pressing human rights problem blamed for everything from mass forced evictions, rampant deforestation and illegal logging.
Under an E.U trade scheme for developing countries, some of those concessions have been exporting their products to member states duty free. …
“The directive does not offer any compensation to the families affected by land grabbing, nor does it address abuses and, worst, land grabbers have obtained millions as a result of [trade] benefits from sugar imports over the last three years,” [the E.U lawmakers] said.
The government has defended the ELCs, which now cover more than a tenth of all land in Cambodia, as lifting the country’s rural reaches out of poverty. …
Zsombor Peter, P.16
www.cambodiadaily.com
Illegal rosewood seized at border
March 27th, 2013, The Cambodia Herald, Business & Commercial Development, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Exports, Imports, International Relations, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Police have cracked down on illegal large-scale rosewood smuggling at the Cambodia-Thai border in the district of Malai.
In the sting operation Tuesday night, led by Banteay Meanchey prosecutor, Phan Pirom, the authorities have seized around three tons of rosewood, hidden in the truck bed used for transporting milled rice from Vietnam to Thailand, through the Malai district’s Ro Beang border entrance. …
Authorities also captured three trucks, which were transporting milled rice, trying to evade import and export taxes into Thailand.
The Cambodia Herald Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=M2M4YzlhNzA2NmY
Organic vegetable demand growing
March 27th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Farming, News Source
On a farm in Kampong Speu province, Erm Rim is talking to a small crowd of consumers and journalists, explaining the process of growing vegetables using only natural resources. …
Rim talks on the sidelines of a consumer field trip organised by the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture (CEDAC), an organisation working to build the capacity and knowledge of rural farmers in ecologically sound agriculture. Four times a year, CEDAC visits Kaheng village training farmers like Rim to grow organically. …
Besides CEDAC, the Cambodian Organic Agriculture Association (COrAA), a nationwide private sector organisation, works for the promotion of organic agriculture in Cambodia. …
Organic vegetable farmers in Cambodia still face challenges in a business less developed than organic rice growing. But with rising awareness of the health benefits, organic vegetables are catching on, with supply outstripping demand. …
So far COrAA has certified one group of 72 organic vegetable growers in Svay Rieng province and two larger operations in Kampong Speu, based on chemical-free standards.
According to Ayumi Matsuura, project manager and country representative of the International Volunteers of Yamagata (IVY), in 2012 the group from Svay Rieng sold 31 tonnes of chemical-free vegetables in Phnom Penh’s Boeung Trabek market alone, resulting in sales of $39,000. …
Anne Renzenbrink
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032764708/Inside-Business/organic-vegetable-demand-growing.html
Forestry Administration Fights Logging with Wedding Gardens
March 27th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
As the remains of the county’s forests fall to rapacious illegal loggers and to make way for the government-awarded economic land concessions, officials tasked with forestry protection are hoping newlywed couples can build a last line of defense.
“Wedding gardens”- green spaces where newly-married couples are encouraged to plant a sapling in order to promote the protection of the country’s forests- have been opened in Stung Treng province and another in neighbouring Kratie provinces.
In Stung Treng, the forestry administration has set up a nursery that contains saplings including those which produce luxury wood such as the rosewood trees Beng, Neag Nuon, and Karki. …
Camboda’s estimated forest cover-a blunt indicator, which does not detail the quality of the forests records- has declined from about 73 percent in the 1960s to about 57 percent currently.
Kuch Naren, P.20
www.cambodiadaily.com
Grasslands present dilemma
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Climate Change, Disasters & Disaster Management, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Farming, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Reports, Rice, Social Concerns
A week after British researchers released a study warning that the nation’s grasslands would soon be lost if drastic action was not taken to protect them, some agricultural experts have called for moderation, noting that the intensive rice cultivation blamed for the grasslands’ destruction is critical to the nation’s developing commercial rice sector. …
Dr Volker Kleinhenz, an agricultural consultant who has researched rice cultivation in the Kingdom extensively, called the area around the Tonle Sap, “exceptional” because of the readily available source of water for irrigation.
“Double-cropping can double annual yields. Furthermore, the yields and quality of dry-season rice are usually better than that of wet-season rice, predisposing this crop for export,” he said. …
Since 2005, the year researchers say intensive rice cultivation became the leading cause of destruction of the grasslands, rice exports have increased exponentially – from 5,971 tonnes in 2005 to 192,666 tonnes last year – according to statistics from the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
Danson Cheong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664676/National/grasslands-present-dilemma.html
Ministry pushes for safer use of industrial chemicals
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, News Source
The Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy (MIME) and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) yesterday discussed means of safely stocking industrial chemicals, with the hope of reducing environmental pollution in the region.
At a conference on sustainable manufacturing practices, Sok Narin, the head of UNIDO in Cambodia, said growing awareness of environmental benefits by factory owners might lessen environmental pollution and contribute positively to workers’ health. …
Rubber firm is felling state forest: villagers
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, International Relations, Land Tenure, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Villagers who confiscated land-clearing equipment during a forest patrol yesterday in Khsuem commune in Kratie province’s Snuol district are claiming the equipment belongs to a rubber concessionaire attempting to expand into state land, an allegation local authorities denied.
Villager representative Mom Sokkin said the Binh Phuoc Katrie Rubber II Company has been attempting to clear a pocket of state land located within its concession. …
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664681/National/rubber-firm-is-felling-state-forest-villagers.html
Ethnic Jarai villagers defend claim at court
March 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns
Jarai ethnic minority villagers appeared at Ratanakkiri provincial court yesterday, demanding compensation from a Vietnamese company they say illegally cleared 30 hectares of community land in November last year. …
Chea Chanrith was granted a licence from the Ministry of Agriculture last year to clear land in Bakeo and O’Yadav districts to plant rubber trees. …
In response to the allegations, Chan Mab, a translator from Chea Chanrith, said the company had cleared the land in accordance with a map acknowledged by the forestry administration and other authorities.
“We cleared with our map. Sometimes villagers think the forest is their own, but actually it is granted to a company,” he said, adding that compensation will depend on negotiations between the community and the company supervised by authorities.
Chea Chanrith was granted 659 hectares of land to plant rubber trees and some 600 hectares have already been cleared and planted.
The Jarai community forest had been recognised since 2010 by provincial authorities, which had maps clearly delineating their claim of 481 hectares. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013032664679/National/ethnic-jarai-villagers-defend-claim-at-court.html
$10 mln to protect ecosystems in Southeast Asia
March 25th, 2013, The Cambodia Herald, Business & Commercial Development, Climate Change, Disasters & Disaster Management, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Social Concerns
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund has committed to provide another $10 mln U.S. in grants to address the environmental crisis engulfing mainland Southeast Asia.
The ground-breaking biodiversity fund was launched in 2008. During the first phase, $10 mln was invested in efforts to conserve the critical ecosystems in the Indo-Burma Hotspot, which includes the Irrawaddy, Thanlwin (Salween), Chao Phraya, Red, Pearl and Mekong Rivers and Tonle Sap Lake system.
Collectively, these systems sustain the economy, cultures and biodiversity of one of the biologically richest and most densely populated regions on earth.
The Cambodia Herald Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=ZmM3ZDQzYjBiMmV
Powerless Phnom Penh Struggles With Hot Season
March 25th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Business & Commercial Development, Electricity, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Hydroelectricity, Infrastructure, Social Concerns, Solar Power, Water
As air-conditioning units slow to a halt, computers die and the lights go out, the frustration of local business owners and organizations in Phnom Penh is boiling over once again as the annual hot season blackouts have arrived. …
The 190-megawatt, Chinese-built Kamchay hydropower dam in Kampot province came online in 2011 with the promise of bringing more power to Phnom Penh and helping reduce the country’s energy-supply deficit.
Yet according to an EdC official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak with the media, the Kamchay dam is currently operating at only 10 percent of its capacity because “there is no water” during the dry season. Blackouts were also the result of EdC upgrading power transformers, which required that some sub-stations had to be temporarily cut off, the official said, adding that the upgrade work should be completed by mid-April. …
“Dams need water,” Mr. Mean said. “But the fact is, Cambodia is much better suited to solar energy than hydropower,” he said.
Michael Shaw, an independent renewable energy adviser who worked with NGO Engineers Without Borders in Cambodia, said that even with the nine new hydropower dams in the pipeline, Phnom Penh and other cities are growing at a pace that will exceed that supply. …
Simon Henderson and Sun Mesa
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/powerless-phnom-penh-struggles-with-hot-season-15655/
Documentary Looks at Impact of Mekong Dams
March 22nd, 2013, VOA, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Climate Change, Construction, Electricity, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Fishing, Hydroelectricity, Infrastructure, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Social Concerns, Water
An updated documentary, “Where Have All the Fish Gone?,” examines the impacts of hydroelectric dams on the Mekong River.
The Xayaburi dam, which would produce hydropower for market, has become a divisive issue among Mekong River countries. Critics say it could severely damage ecosystems on which lower countries like Cambodia and Vietnam rely. It is one of 11 dams under consideration on the lower Mekong. …
Some 60 million people live along the Mekong River, relying on it for food and agriculture. The use of the river is supposed to be supervised by the Mekong River Commission, which has representatives from regional governments. …
Say Mony
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/documentary-looks-at-impact-of-mekong-dams/1626779.html
Short on Water in the Tonle Sap
March 20th, 2013, Radio Free Asia, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Climate Change, Construction, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Fishing, Infrastructure, Lakes/Rivers, Social Concerns
Residents of a village in the middle of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap “Great Lake” live surrounded by water, but don’t have enough access to clean water for drinking, cooking, and washing.
The Tonle Sap, a combined lake and river system that swells in the rainy season to form Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, has for generations supported fishing communities living in floating villages of moored houseboats.
But the silt deposited by the flow of the Mekong River, which nourishes the Tonle Sap’s abundance of fish that form a key source of food for millions of Cambodians, makes its brown, muddy waters unsuitable for daily use by households. …
During the wet season, residents can get clean water from nearby ponds and wells, but during the dry season villagers have to buy bottled water. …
Radio Free Asia Staff
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/water-03202013141227.html
Hun Sen: No to industry along coast
March 19th, 2013, The Cambodia Herald, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Tourism
Hun Sen asked authorities to maintain the pristine beaches along coastal provinces by not allowing any industrial factories to be constructed on or near them. …
The comment was aimed towards an agreement signed by Cambodian and Chinese companies late last month to build a $2.3 bln kerosene plant which can produce 5 mln tons annually. The factory will be ready by late 2015.
The Cambodian Herald Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=ZmQ1NGIxODRiYTk
Cambodia launches National Council on Green Growth
March 19th, 2013, Xinhuanet News, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Economics, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations
Cambodia on Tuesday officially inaugurated the National Council on Green Growth, aiming at developing a sustainable economic society with natural resource and environment sustainability. …
Cambodia has adopted several legal instruments for the green growth implementation. Those included the roadmap for green growth, the memorandum of understanding on green growth cooperation between Cambodia and South Korea’s Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), the National Council on Green Growth, and Cambodia’s membership into an agreement on the establishment of the GGGI. …
Xinhuanet Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-03/19/c_132246075.htm
1.5 mln hectares of land concessions granted
March 19th, 2013, The Cambodia Herald, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, Land Tenure
Hun Sen announced that 1.5 mln hectares of Economic Land Concessions were granted to private companies.
1.2 mln hectares, 80 percent, of the concessions are used for rubber plantation sector. …
He said, that Cambodia still maintain[s] 9.2 mln hectares of forest land even though 1.5 mln hectares of land concessions were given. …
This action reflects an equilibrium which has to be done in order to provide jobs for citizens to reduce poverty, migration, and as well as for environmental protection and sustainability of natural resources. …
The Cambodian Herald Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=OWU3Nzc3ODg4YjY
Illegal checkpoints, logging tools netted
March 19th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Timber/Wood
Activists in Kratie province’s Snuol district seized seven chainsaws over the weekend and collected evidence that four police checkpoints were used to solicit bribes from illegal loggers, representatives of the network said yesterday.
After scouring thousands of hectares of protected forest from Friday through yesterday, the evidence that 40 network patrollers uncovered showed significant evidence of illegal logging of three kinds of luxury wood in Ksim commune, said Sorn Siyan, a community network representative. …
Since 2003, when the government recognised the area as community forest, 2,459 hectares of that forest has been completely destroyed, and the remaining portion was threatened by powerful officials and newcomers, said Siyan.
Ksim commune police chief Or Seng denied that illegal logging was occurring in his area, asserting that all of the commune’s community forest already had been felled and that the remaining forest had been granted to a private company in a government concession. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013031962013/National/illegal-checkpoints-logging-tools-netted.html
New study reveals catastrophic loss of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands
March 17th, 2013, Phys Org News, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Climate Change, Construction, Disasters & Disaster Management, Economics, Environment & Natural Resources, Environmental change, Farming, Fishing, Infrastructure, International Relations, Lakes/Rivers, Land Tenure, Reports
Around half of Cambodia’s tropical flooded grasslands have been lost in just 10 years according to new research from the University of East Anglia. The seasonally flooded grasslands around the Tonle Sap, Southeast Asia’s largest freshwater lake, are of great importance for biodiversity and a refuge for 11 globally-threatened bird species, including the Bengal Florican. They are also a vital fishing, grazing, and traditional rice farming resource for around 1.1 million people. …
The grassland area spanned 3349 km² in 1995, but by 2005 it had been reduced to just 1817 km² – a loss of 46 per cent.
Despite conservation efforts in some areas, it has continued to shrink rapidly since, with a further 19 per cent lost in four years (2005-2009) from the key remaining grassland area in the southeast of the Tonle Sap floodplain.
Factors include intensive commercial rice farming with construction of irrigation channels, which is often illegal. Some areas have also been lost to scrubland where traditional, low-intensity agricultural activity has been abandoned. …
Phys Org News Staff
http://phys.org/news/2013-03-reveals-catastrophic-loss-cambodia-tropical.html
Land rights have key role in Cambodia
March 16th, 2013, The Gulf Times, Business & Commercial Development, Construction, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Industry, Infrastructure, International Relations, Land Tenure, Timber/Wood
Faced with widespread evictions and opaque private sector deals, activists in Cambodia are calling on the government to be more open and transparent about land concessions, beef up mechanisms for resolving land disputes, and abide by the rule of law. …
It is estimated that at least two thirds of Cambodians, many of them poverty-stricken farmers, lack proper deeds to the property they live on. Over the past decade thousands have been forcibly evicted from their homes, while others have fallen victim to land-grabbing. During this time of rapid economic growth, and with more growth forecast, there has been increasing demand for land in this largely agricultural country of about 15mn people, and rising land tenure insecurity, experts say. …
Rights groups have largely welcomed a moratorium on the granting of new ELCs, a review of existing concessions, and a nationwide land-titling programme announced by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in June 2012 to stem the number of disputes. According to ADHOC, official data states that by the end of 2012, more than 71,000 land titles had been issued through the programme. …
Cambodian government spokesperson Phay Siphan said allegations of government complicity in land-grabbing were “baseless” and, if necessary, people could take disputes to court. …
Gulf Times Staff
http://www.gulf-times.com/asean-philippines/188/details/345724/land-rights-have-key-role-in-cambodia