The Bird’s Eye View: What Endangered Birds Tell Us About the Risks of Mekong Development

The Thai government started 2017 announcing another major commitment to transportation expansion: US$25 billion to finance futuristic high-speed trains, super highways and expanded sea and airports. Far less glitzy but immediately controversial, however, was one of its final transportation acts of 2016: preparing to restart, after 13 years, rapid blasting and river channelization to clear the Mekong River for navigation just below its arrival from Myanmar.

Before the Flood: can the Bunong culture survive Cambodia’s Sesan II dam?

At a time when much of Cambodia is developing at a breakneck speed, where smartphones and BMWs have become almost as ubiquitous on the streets of Phnom Penh as saffron-robed monks, the village of Kbal Romeas inhabits a world apart. Tucked deep into the jungles of the country’s untamed northeast, the village has no convenience stores, streetlights, or paved roads. Instead, a visitor would be more likely to find a stretched snakeskin nailed to a piece of teak, drying in the midday sun as a testament to the animist beliefs of the people who live there.

Ambitious Green Energy Plans in Vietnam and Cambodia proceed at snail’s pace

During the 2016 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Marrakech (COP 22) Vietnam and Cambodia professed their commitment to do their part to reduce CO2 emissions. Noting that they are both on the front lines globally in facing impacts from a warming atmosphere, the two neighbors agreed to transition their entire electricity generating portfolios to renewables.