May 17, 2012
Myanmar remains one of the world’s only countries with no prohibitions on log exports. The country provides much coveted teak and other hardwood logs to the region and beyond. Sawn wood, and to a lesser extent finished wood products, contribute a relatively small amount to Myanmar’s total exports of wood products. As in the majority of Mekong countries, one of the most significant trends affecting forest lands in Myanmar relates to the considerable, and often times informal, foreign direct...
May 15, 2012
The problem of forest encroachment by rubber growers in the Mae Tha Phae National Park in Sukhothai is getting worse with authorities on Thursday discovering another 500 rai of rich forest land had been leveled.
A 115-strong team of forestry officials led by Sakarin Panyajai, head of the Forest Department’s forest protection and patrol unit, raided four sites suspected of being deforested in the park located in Sri Satchanalai district after receiving tip-offs from...
May 14, 2012
Mangroves, which hold three to four times more carbon than other forests, are indispensable repositories for carbon storage and play a key role in the struggle to rein in greenhouse gases and climate change. However, these vital coastal ecosystems are up against the more powerful forces of population growth, development and the growth of shrimp farms, and are being razed at such an alarming rate that scientists fear they could vanish in a century.
“In past 50 years, it...
May 10, 2012
Last year researchers took the first ever publicly-released video of an African golden cat (Profelis aurata) in a Gabon rainforest. This beautiful, but elusive, feline was filmed sitting docilely for the camera and chasing a bat. The least-known of Africa’s wild cat species, the African golden cat has been difficult to study because it makes its home deep in the Congo rainforest. However, researchers didn’t capture the cat on video in an untrammeled, pristine forest, but in a...
May 8, 2012
The government has declared that a report regarding the country’s loss of almost five million hectares of forest and peatlands since the implementation of a moratorium on deforestation is misleading.
“The report cannot be understood because it’s different from the forestry ministry’s record, which says the deforestation rate over the past few years has drastically decreased to around 500,000 hectares annually,” said Agus Purnomo, a presidential special aide on climate...
May 4, 2012
Abandoned by NGOs and the World Bank, carved out for rubber plantations and mining by the Cambodian government, spiraling into a chaos of poaching and illegal logging, and full of endangered species and never-explored places, Virachey National Park may be the world’s greatest park that has been written off by the international community. But a new book by explorer and PhD student, Greg McCann, hopes to change that. Entitled Called Away by a Mountain Spirit: Journey to the Green...
Several protected areas across the archipelago remain under threat of deforestation apparently due to the ineffective moratorium program launched by the government last year, environmental groups say. The environmental groups have witnessed continuing forest destruction by several companies despite the moratorium.
On Thursday, Greenpeace, a member of the environmental groups’ coalition, published its findings on the current situation of Indonesian forests in Riau and...
April 13, 2012
Cambodian and Thai officials have agreed to work together to combat illegal logging of rosewood and resulting violence between Cambodian loggers and Thai rangers, reports MCOT online news. Officials with both nations met on Tuesday and spent three hours discussing the issue.
Commercial logging was banned in Thailand following devastating floods in 1989. However, the ban has not stopped Cambodian nationals from illegally crossing the border to harvest rosewood. Over 400...
April 9, 2012
A delegation from the Viet Nam Administration of Forestry is inspecting deforestation in central Quang Nam Province following instruction from Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai. The move was made following reports about recent deforestation en masses by local people in valleys with hydro-power projects. The administration is required to report the inspection result to Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung before April 20.
Focus will fall on deforestation of upstream...
April 6, 2012
Protected forests upstream in border area near Laos, in the central province of Ha Tinh, have been terribly gutted, forcing authorities to urgently intervene.
Now, the Son Hong forest, covering an area of over 17,000 hectares, is jointly managed by the Hong Linh Forest Protection Management Board, which belongs to the Huong Son Forestry and Service Company.
“This is the worst forest destruction case in Ha Tinh. Huong Son Forestry and Service Company...