Guar herd caught on camera: ministry
A herd of gaurs with calves was spotted by an infrared-triggered camera trap at one of the Kingdom’s many wildlife sanctuaries, raising hopes among local and international biodiversity conservationists that the species can be saved from extinction, according to the Ministry of Environment on July ...
Mom Kunthear
ASEAN’s Migrant Worker Clusters
According to think tank, the Institute for Human Rights and Business, across Southeast Asia, an estimated 10 million migrant workers live and work in major destinations such as Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Malaysia is home to around two million documented migrant workers, comprising about 15 percent ...
Athira Nortajuddin
$1M grant from Luce Foundation launches interdisciplinary program on. Mekong Sustainability
A Michigan State University interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff is working to foster environmental justice in Southeast Asia. The Henry Luce Foundation’s Initiative on Southeast Asia, or LuceSEA, is providing $1 million in funding to help create the Mekong Culture WELL project. The Lower Mekong ...
Lois Furry, Amanda Flaim
Japan, Mekong states back Cambodia's economic recovery initiative
Japan and other Mekong countries have expressed support for Cambodia’s initiative to establish a joint working group on the Mekong-Japan Economic Recovery Scenarios, according to a press statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation following their latest meeting on August 6. The ...
Voun Dara
Damming the Lower Mekong, Devastating the Ways and Means of Life
The water is so clear on the Mekong River in northeastern Thailand that the sunlight pierces through to the riverbed, transforming the waterway into a glinting, empty aquarium. It is beautiful but it means death. At this time of year in Thailand, this stretch of the ...
Hannah Beech
How Meaningful is the New US-Mekong Partnership?
On September 11, the United States and the five lower Mekong nations launched a new framework for multilateral cooperation amid rising concerns about China’s expanding influence in mainland Southeast Asia. In announcing the new Mekong-U.S. Partnership at a meeting in Hanoi, the U.S. State Department pledged at ...
Sebastian Strangio
The Mekong doesn't need more destructive dams
On 11 May, the Mekong River Commission (MRC) announced that the proposed Sanakham hydropower project in Laos will undergo the MRC’s Prior Consultation process. Sanakham is the sixth mainstream dam to be submitted for Prior Consultation. The proposed Sanakham dam is expensive, unnecessary and risky — ...
SAVE THE MEKONG COALITION
Wet-season dam operations hit Mekong ecology and communities
In early July 2021, Chinese dams began restricting the flow of the Upper Mekong. Researchers and activists say the consequences downstream are unknown and potentially severe. As China celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party on 1 July, the Jinghong dam in Yunnan Province began restricting ...
Tyler Roney, The Third Pole
Chinese dams held back Mekong waters during drought, study finds
China’s Mekong River dams held back large amounts of water during a damaging drought in downstream countries last year despite China having higher-than-average water levels upstream, a U.S. research company said in a study. China’s government disputed the findings, saying there was low rainfall during last ...
Kay Johnson
Cambodian Deputy FM to pay official visit to South Korea
Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn will pay an official visit to the Republic of Korea today. Sokhonn and South Korean Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong are expected to jointly chair a virtual meeting with their counterparts from four other countries along the Mekong River—a major trade route between western ...
Nick Giurleo / Daily Brief
The Mekong: the good, bad and ugly sides to the ‘Danube of the East’
To Tibetans, it’s known as Dza Chu, or the River of Rocks, and to the Chinese it’s the Lancang Jiang, the Turbulent River. The Lao refer to it as the Mother of Waters, in Cambodia it’s the Great Water and by the time it reaches ...
Tim Pile
Japan resumes meeting with 5 Mekong countries after suspending it due to Myanmar coup
Japan is expected to use its meeting on Friday with the five Mekong River states to reiterate its commitment to the region, although analysts said it will also aim to reinforce its foreign policy objective of countering China’s influence. Japanese Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi will hold ...
Julian Ryall
Bringing “the people” back in: Forest Resources Conservation with Dr. Apichart Pattaratuma
With a lifetime dedicated to forest conservation, Dr. Apichart Pattaratuma reflected back on his career and what forest management means to Thailand. In the year 1978, he received the prestigious United Nations and Ananda Mahidol Foundation Scholarship to attain higher education at the College of ...
Rattana Lao
Interview: Pou Sothirak on protecting the Mekong and powering Cambodia
Previously secretary of state at the Foreign Affairs Ministry for the Cambodian government, Pou Sothirak is executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace. He is a tireless campaigner for the ecology and communities of the Lower Mekong and particularly Tonle Sap, Southeast ...
Tyler Roney
China’s Mekong plans threaten disaster for countries downstream
Thirty million people depend for a living on the Mekong, the great Asian river that runs through Southeast Asia from its origins in the snowfields of Tibet to its end in the delta region of Vietnam, where it fertilizes one of the world’s richest agricultural ...
Richard Bernstein
Thao Nguyen Phan review – tribute to the Mekong River's myth and might
Thao Nguyen Phan’s Becoming Alluvium opens with sound: an outboard motor puttering in the dark. The tea-brown, silt-clouded water of the Mekong appears, gliding beneath the prow of a little boat. Lines from the great poet Rabindranath Tagore’s The Gardener lap the screen, concluding: “Why did the ...
Hettie Judah
Chinese dams on Mekong River endanger fish stocks, livelihoods, activists say
For Pianporn Deetes, the Mekong is more than a river. “This is not just liquid, but this is the entire life-supporting system,” Deetes, a local activist, said recently on a wooden long-tail boat heading upstream in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. The Mekong, one of the world’s longest waterways, runs about ...
Keir Simmons, Rhoda Kwan, Nat Sumon and Jennifer Jett
Endangered Species Are Paying the Price of COVID-19
The table we’re writing on is made of rosewood, the most trafficked wildlife product in the world. For months, we’ve been researching the uptick in logging and poaching, which are gradually emptying out the forests here in Cambodia as well as neighboring Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, ...
Lindsey Kennedy, Nathan Paul Southern
From Pak Mun to Xayaburi: It’s time to rethink hydroelectric dams along the Mekong
The rising demand for electricity is often touted as a reason for building dams. But the proponents of dams conveniently overlook the impact on those living on the river banks and the destruction of ecosystems. Ever since the Pak Mun dam was built in Ubon ...
Kanokwan Manorom
ASEAN Underground Abortion
Abortion is an extremely taboo topic in some parts of conservative Southeast Asia. ASEAN member states such as the Philippines and Lao do not permit abortion. Whereas Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand only allow abortion if a medical practitioner deems that continuing the pregnancy poses a danger ...
Athira Nortajuddin