Logging in the protected Prey Lang forest has ramped up during the coronavirus pandemic – NGO continues to monitor the destruction despite government threats of legal action to stop that work.
Category: Region
Selected environmental stories from media outlets in the Mekong region and beyond.
Mekong Delta residents flee as nature turns hostile
Their ancestors had come to settle the Mekong Delta, turning it into the nation’s agriculture and aquaculture hub, but now they are fleeing.
How to mitigate the health disaster of air pollution – can the successful Vietnamese Covid response teach us some lessons?
Air pollution is “a silent killer” in Vietnam where more than 60 000 deaths per year, more than traffic accidents with 11,000 deaths.
Roving bandits and looted coastlines: How the global appetite for sand is fuelling a crisis
Scientists have also confirmed river bank instability from sand mining in the Mekong, Yangtze and other large rivers. Sand dredging impacts river flow, erosion levels and aquatic habitats.
Mekong levels rise to normal, while more rainfall is in forecast
Water levels across the vast majority of lower Mekong basin have now returned to their normal long-term averages, says the Mekong River Commission (MRC). But they are still lower than those of the 2018 and 2019 dry seasons.
China held water back from drought-stricken Mekong countries, report says
While these dams have disrupted the river’s natural systems for years, 2019 saw a particularly damaging situation, as downstream countries faced a severe drought while the Upper Mekong received above-average rainfall.
Mekong Delta’s reservoir of abundance runs dry
Designed to supply water to more than 200,000 people living in 24 communes and towns for household use, and for industrial and irrigation purposes. No empty, it has thrown daily life into disarray.
Carbon credits up in forests
Thot Sokha, a member of the forestry community at the sanctuary said that he was not aware of Sam Al’s message to the officers, but local officials have done little to prevent forest crimes and land encroachments.
Are China’s dams on the Mekong causing downstream drought? The importance of scientific debate
There are weaknesses in the methodology used that undermine the claims that China completely held back the 2019 wet season flow.
Lao Dam Disaster: UN Rights Experts Call For Justice Two Years On
“Governments, as well as companies and banks, stand to profit handsomely from the hydropower project, yet the communities who lost everything have received only broken promises,” the experts report.