Introduction The Chinese government has accepted three recommendations (made by Ecuador, Peru, and Kenya) to address the human rights and environmental impacts of overseas Chinese investment and infrastructure projects. This signals a shift in the way that China has been approaching the human rights and environmental ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

Land governance is a concept that cuts across academic disciplines, bridging social and environmental sciences, an understanding of legal frameworks, political economy and policy studies.RCSD, Faculty of Social Sciences, CMU hosts the Mekong Land Research Forum. Together they run a week-long summer school on researching ...

The latest reports from the Lower Mekong Basin are cause for growing concern that another period of drought will succeed that of 2019, affecting Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Expected rainfall from late May through June and July has not arrived, and the level of ...

The Mekong region holds a vital part of Southeast Asia’s industrial potential. As defined by Open Development Mekong, the industry category includes not only manufacturing, but also construction and tourism, which are important sources of employment and income in the region. [This page is under development, ...

The projected energy demand in Lower Mekong countries will double from 157.8 Mtoe (million tons of oil equivalent) in 2010 to 319.6 Mtoe in 2035, with the demand concentrated heavily in Vietnam and Thailand. Fossil fuels remain the major energy source in all five Lower ...

The ownership and control of land is of critical importance to understanding the Mekong region and its development. A majority of the population is primarily engaged in agriculture, so land is the basis of both residence and livelihood. The five nations encompass a total land ...

Open Development Initiative (ODI), a project of East-West Management Institute (EWMI), stimulates public demand, builds coalitions, and offers a constantly evolving platform to support the transparent sharing and analysis of data to improve and inform constructive dialogue and decision making for sustainable and equitable development.  ODI ...

Inclusive Development International, in collaboration with Bank Information Center, Accountability Counsel, Urgewald, 11.11.11, Ulu Foundation and Tarkapaw Youth Group, has released an investigative report into the International Finance Corporation’s hidden investments in Southeast Asia. Read their full release below.—Out of control: The World Bank’s reckless private ...

China stepped up its vaccine diplomacy on Monday with Premier Li Keqiang promising five Southeast Asian partners priority access to a  coronavirus  vaccine while also pledging to share water control information for flood-hit nations along the Mekong River. Li made the remarks at a videoconference of the Lancang-Mekong ...

The EarthRigths School is an intensive, residential training program for activists and earth rights defenders from the Mekong region (China, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam) who are working on environmental and human rights issues. Through three months’ program we will provide the relevant knowledge, skills, and networks ...

USAID and NASA have launched “SERVIR-Mekong,” promoting satellite imagery to help the Lower Mekong predict and cope with natural disasters and increase resilience to the negative effects of climate change. ...

When the next round of Asian summitry kicks off later this month in Bangkok, one of the key areas that will be in the spotlight within U.S. policy will be the Washington’s approach to the Mekong subregion – a shorthand for the area in mainland Southeast ...