Category: Region
Selected environmental stories from media outlets in the Mekong region and beyond.
The 5Rs in Myanmar
This primer is about ‘the 5Rs’ and land and natural resource politics. The 5Rs is a set of five principles: Recognition, Restitution, Redistribution, Regeneration, and Representation/Resistance. The primer briefly explores the idea of a working people’s program on land and natural resources in Myanmar based on these five principles in the context of a future federal democratic system.
Laos govt approves Bokeo-Boten expressway linking China, Thailand
The first stage of the 440km expressway has been been built. The contractor estimates it will take 10 years to build the next three sections from Vangvieng district in Vientiane province to the Chinese border in Luang Namtha province, at a cost of US$6 billion.
‘Please show mercy’: Evicted by Cambodia, ethnic Vietnamese stuck at watery border
But few are willing to help hundreds of stateless families, who had earned a living breeding fish and hosting tourists on Cambodia’s Tonle Sap River, and are now moored to a riverbank a few kilometres from Vietnam, desperate to be allowed inside.
Fifth Mekong dolphin calf recorded this year
Censuses conducted by the Fisheries Administration and WWF-Cambodia show 13 and nine births in 2019-2020, respectively, and eight and nine deaths, leaving the total population of Irrawaddy dolphins in the Kingdom’s reaches of the Mekong at just 89. From 2007-2020 the average annual growth rate has been 1.02 per cent and the average annual death rate has been 2.14 per cent, signalling a slow demise of the gentle creatures, according to a joint report by the two organisations.
As the West leaves a void in Myanmar, China ignores its own advice to invest
While China’s official guidelines have previously cautioned against investing in conflict zones, the temptations in Myanmar are strong. Indeed, under the junta, joint development projects appear to be accelerating.
Thailand downgraded in US human trafficking report
“Smugglers, brokers, employers, and others exploit Thai and migrant workers in labour trafficking in commercial fishing and related industries, the poultry industry, manufacturing, agriculture, domestic work, and street begging,” the report said.
Myanmar’s warring military and rebels find common ground in corrupt jade trade
A new investigation from watchdog group Global Witness reports that jade mining is a major source of income for both the Myanmar military and armed ethnic groups, fueling conflict in the country.
Carving up the Cardamoms: Conservationists fear massive land grab in Cambodia
Conservationists have expressed concern over a recently published regulation that makes nearly 127,000 hectares (313,800 acres) of previously protected land potentially available for sale or rent to politically connected businesses.
Assessing COVID-19 measures on aquaculture farmers’ livelihoods in the Mekong Region
Public health measures aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19 can have significant, unintended impacts on livelihoods. In this paper, we assess the impacts of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic on aquaculture farmers in five countries in the Mekong Region.