BANGKOK — A new satellite analysis from U.S. think tank the Stimson Center has identified 517 suspected mines along rivers in Laos, including major tributaries of the Mekong, Southeast Asia’s longest river, heightening concerns about contamination of waterways that sustain local communities.

Stimson has not ground-truthed the mine sites identified through satellite imagery, but Mongabay spoke by phone with several government officials in Laos’s southern border province of Attapeu, home to 188 mines in the data, who said illegal mining remains widespread despite recent crackdowns.

“We still see officials carrying out inspections and confiscating equipment” from illegal mines in Attapeu, said one government official who spoke to Mongabay on condition of anonymity due to the limited press freedoms in Laos.

The analysis shines new light on the scale of mining in river basins across mainland Southeast Asia. The issue previously caught the spotlight in northern Thailand earlier this year after dangerous levels of arsenic were found to be flowing downstream from unregulated gold mines in Myanmar’s Shan state.

Keep reading

The post New mapping reveals hidden mining boom in Laos that threatens the Mekong first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

The forest in northern Gabon didn’t look like a battleground. It was a patchwork of hunting trails and village paths, home to fruit trees and ancestral graves. When a logging concession encroached and the community of Massaha protested, their pleas traveled poorly through official channels. Then the story was reported, documented and read by people in a position to act. The environment minister took notice, revoked the company’s permit, and the government moved to protect the forest at the community’s request. The victory wasn’t journalism’s alone. It belonged to village leaders who organized, the officials who acted, and the laws that allowed for course correction. Yet none of it would have happened, or not as quickly, had the facts not been gathered, verified and made public.

This is how journalism drives impact at its best. It doesn’t draft statutes, deploy police or plant trees. It supplies the oxygen those actions require: credible information, in time, in public.

Keep reading

The post How journalism helps turn information into outcomes first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

BAN PONG, Thailand — “Look at these ones over here!” calls Chamran Tahpan, as she crouches next to a mound of damp leaves on the forest floor. A cluster of mushrooms sprouts from the center of the earthy-smelling pile.

“These are hed khon, termite mushrooms,” says Rachaprapa Kamphud, 55, who leads the Ban Pong community forest and fire management group in northern Thailand’s Lampang province. Edible mushrooms like hed khon, along with a variety of other nontimber products, such as bamboo shoots, leafy greens and red ant eggs, can fetch high prices in local markets, she says, offering villagers a modest income.

By keeping the forest soil moist using small check dams designed to slow the flow of minor streams, Rachaprapa says they need only pile up humid leaves and soil to yield wild mushrooms year-round. There’s no need to set fire to the leaf litter to stimulate their growth — a common but risky method many nearby communities rely on.

Keep reading

The post Women-led patrols and fire prevention restore forests in northern Thailand first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

One year ago, Cambodia jailed five activists from the award-winning environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia for plotting against the government, after they had sounded the alarm about river pollution and land reclamation projects. THE CLEARING follows Chandaravuth – the group’s most outspoken member – and his colleagues in the months leading up to their incarceration as they continue on their collision course with Cambodia’s rulers and refuse to buckle under pressure.

Banner image: Ly Chandaravuth, Mother Nature Activist. Image ©Andy Ball.

See the original post

The post Cambodia: A factory penalised for environmental and public health damage in violation of Environmental Code first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

Pacing paw-to-paw, the fishing cat hisses. About twice the size of a domestic cat, its grey-green eyes fix on the keeper who carries a tub of tilapia on the other side of the fence. The gate of the enclosure at the Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand (WFFT) rescue center in central Thailand’s Phetchaburi province pops open, and the keeper enters. The prowling cat switches to a loping canter — moving more like an otter than a wild cat — as it whips a fish from the tub and takes it to a corner to dine in privacy. The muscular nape ripples at its powerful jaws make quick work of its slippery fare. Fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus) are superbly adapted to living and hunting in marshes, wetlands and mangroves. Nocturnal hunters, they have an almost unique affinity for water among felines, sporting partially webbed feet, a double-layered coat and ears that seal when submerged. But with these habitats fast disappearing, the species is in trouble. The IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, considers fishing cats vulnerable to extinction. Fewer than 10,000 individuals are thought to remain in the wild across their range spanning South and Southeast Asia. Globally, they face many of the same threats as other wild cat species: habitat loss, persecution, pollution and genetic problems associated with small and fragmented populations. 

Keep reading

The post As Thailand’s fishing cats face habitat loss & conflict, experts seek resolution first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

PURSAT, Cambodia — The Cambodian government has approved at least three new irrigation dams across the Cardamom Mountains, carving even deeper into forests currently being used for the Southern Cardamom REDD+ and Samkos REDD+ carbon credit projects.

Construction is yet to begin on the new dams, which are slated to be built in Battambang, Koh Kong and Pursat provinces. Officials from the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology, and the Ministry of Mines and Energy all declined to comment on the irrigation dams or their environmental impacts.

The approval of these dams raises further questions about the government’s commitment to the REDD+ mechanism for preserving forests. The Ministry of Environment, alongside New York-headquartered NGO Wildlife Alliance, co-manages both the Southern Cardamom REDD+ and the Samkos REDD+ projects, which will lose a further 5,200 hectares (about 12,850 acres) to the new irrigation dams.

These same forests have already seen significant deforestation in recent months due to the ongoing construction of five new hydropower dams with reservoirs that collectively span 15,000 hectares (about 37,000 acres).

Keep reading

The post New dams call into question Cambodia’s commitment to REDD+ projects first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

PHNOM PENH — In a rare move to combat forest crimes, Cambodian Environment Minister Eang Sophalleth on Sept. 2 banned all forest clearance at the site of a dam project in the country’s southwest.

The ban came after multiple incidents of illegal logging inside a protected area were reported, including by Mongabay, in connection to the Stung Meteuk hydropower project in Koh Kong and Pursat provinces.

However, activists monitoring the logging operations on the ground remain skeptical over the efficacy of the ban, noting that timber processing continues at the site of the hydropower project.

In a letter dated Sept. 2 and addressed to Ly Yong Phat, chair of Steung Meteuk Hydropower Co. Ltd., Sophalleth ordered the company to temporarily suspend its activities related to clearing forest for the 150-megawatt dams’ reservoirs, as well as the processing of logged timber.

Keep reading

The post Cambodian environment minister bans logging at tycoon’s Cardamoms hydropower project first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

In the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, communities in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province are taking stock of the toll wreaked by heavy rains and rising rivers. At least 33 people lost their lives in the country since mid-August amid hazardous conditions that devastated riverside homes, businesses and agricultural land.

The flooding has heightened public and policymaker scrutiny of plans to build a major hydropower dam spanning the Mekong River at Pak Beng in Oudomxay province in Laos. Experts warn the dam, situated 97 kilometers (60 miles) from the Thailand-Laos border, has the potential to elevate water levels in the mainstream Mekong and thus exacerbate seasonal flooding along key tributaries in Thailand.

Local communities and civil society groups have raised their concerns about the project for nearly a decade, claiming the developers and their Thailand-based investors have failed to consider the dam’s potential impacts on people living upstream.

Keep reading

The post Record-breaking floods in northern Thailand intensify scrutiny of Mekong dam project first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

Widely regarded as a solution for climate change, renewable energy projects are booming in Southeast Asia. Installed solar and wind energy capacity across the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) surged by 20% in 2023 to account for 9% of the region’s total energy mix.

But while renewables have the potential to stem the demand for fossil fuels, a new report shows that wind and solar companies operating in Southeast Asia could be doing more to ensure they aren’t having unintended impacts on people’s rights and lives.

The integrity of wind and solar companies’ human rights policies and practices was the topic of a recent investigation by the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC), a U.K.-based private sector watchdog.

Researchers scrutinized the guiding principles of 12 energy companies operating in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, finding all companies lacked policies to protect the human rights of environmental defenders. Many also fell short on commitments to respect the human rights of communities affected by their operations.

Keep reading

The post SE Asia renewables firms fall short on policies to protect environmental defenders first appeared on Open Development Mekong.

Hoang Thi Minh Hong, the prominent Vietnamese environmentalist, was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of tax evasion at the end of a brief trial in Ho Chi Minh City on Sept. 28.

Members of the diplomatic community who attempted to attend the trial were denied access.

Hong, who is an Obama Foundation Scholar, was arrested in the city May 31 in a move that shocked the country’s already-depleted civil society.

In 2013, she founded the Center of Hands-on Action and Networking for Growth and Environment (CHANGE), an NGO that led campaigns to raise awareness of the dangers of wildlife trafficking and air pollution, among other environmental issues.

CHANGE shut down in late 2022 under increasing government pressure on Vietnamese NGOs, particularly those focusing on the environment and issues related to energy policy.

Keep reading

The post Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion first appeared on Open Development Mekong.