Category: Laos
Human Rights Watch Condemns Lao Government for Continued Detention of Elderly Landowner Over Property Dispute
“Wherever land grabbing takes place in Laos, villagers owning land who resist face being jailed, showing yet again how the Lao government abuses the human rights of villagers on lands the government requires.”
Major new project to use nature-based solutions to help Laos adapt to climate change
The US$10 million project is expected to benefit 10 per cent of Laos’ population. The project is using nature-based solutions in four cities to build resilience towards ever-increasing floods caused by climate change.
I Bought an Elephant to Find Out How to Save Them
At a time of unprecedented mass extinctions, no animal epitomizes the global biodiversity free fall more than the Asian elephant. An interpreted investigator goes deep into their trafficking in Laos, intent on saving the 400 still left.
NGOs challenging financiers of the Xayaburi hydropower project
32 groups issue statement to five Thai banks funding the Xayaburi Dam, making five demands including they “not fund any hydropower development project in the Lower Mekong Mainstem for at least ten years.”
Stakeholders Question Farness of MRC’s Impact Assessment for Laos’ Luangprabang Dam
Many recommendations to lower the environmental impact were raised, but few were accepted during a meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) last week in Vientiane.
Laos Defends Latest Plans to Dam the Mekong
MRC experts say plans for the Luang Prabang dam are short of key details: its potential ecological impacts to lost fish spawning grounds, how turbines would actually prove “fish friendly,” and compensation for communities.
China-Laos railway tunnel construction making breakthroughs
China’s latest engineering and construction update (from the Mekong near Luang Prabang) on its Belt and Road Initiative to convert Laos from a landlocked country to a land-linked hub.