Mekong EIA “Dream Team” Reaches the Final Mile

After an eighteen month journey, a team of civil society and government experts from across the Mekong Region is poised to transform the way communities are engaged in development.

The team has developed the Guidelines on Public Participation in Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in the Mekong Region, which lays out a practical approach for governments, companies and communities looking to improve the social and environmental impacts of development projects such as dams, mines, power plants and economic zones.

Veteran Cambodian Journalists Mentor Local Reporters on Environmental Journalism

More than a dozen local journalists from Cambodia’s northeastern provinces attended a short workshop on news gathering and writing skills conducted by two veteran journalists in Stung Treng on January 9, 2017. Mr. Moeun Chhean Nariddh, Director of the Cambodia Institute for Media Studies (CIMS) said part of the workshop was to inform local journalists of the official launching of CEJN and the importance of the role of Mekong journalists in reporting about the environmental impact on the Mekong River.

New research reveals harm to Indigenous Peoples near Nam Theun 2 Project in Laos

On January 4, 2017, the Forum for Development Studies published a new article by Kanokwan Manorom, Ian Baird and Bruce Shoemaker titled, “The World Bank, Hydropower-based Poverty Alleviation and Indigenous Peoples: On-the-Ground Realities in the Xe Bang Fai River Basin of Laos.” This article provides more detail on the project’s impacts following earlier articles on the situation along the Xe Bang Fai River published in 2015 by the same researcher team.

Training Manual Helps Communities Improve Forest Governance and Livelihoods

The USAID Cambodia Supporting Forests and Biodiversity Project (USAID SFB), implemented by Winrock International improves conservation and governance of the Eastern Plains and Prey Lang Landscapes. To assist forest communities to improve governance and obtain equitable benefits from forest resources, USAID SFB developed this NTFP-Based Livelihoods Enterprise Development and Management Training Manual.

Launch of Open Data Portal Brings Environment and Development Data to Myanmar

USAID-supported Mekong Partnership for the Environment (MPE) partners have launched an innovative data portal in Myanmar. Open Development Myanmar is now available to the public and will aggregate and promote key development and environmental data about Myanmar, especially data with potential regional significance. The platform is the Myanmar sub-site of the major regional open data platform, Open Development Mekong, which gathers and contextualizes objective data on development trends in the Mekong region.