This is the second article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part One. Niwat Roykaew, an environmental activist based…
This is the first article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part Two. The Mekong River carves a vast…
SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “I remember seeing a buffalo, its head tied to a floating barrel, drifting down the river,” says Pheng Sisuwath, gesturing to the Sekong River from his…
Nestled amid the mountains of northern Laos, the picturesque ancient capital of Luang Prabang is under siege from a dam-building fever along the Mekong River, with a Thai developer now…
The Lower Sesan 2 hydroelectric scheme was completed in northeast Cambodia in 2018. The reservoir flooded 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) upstream of the confluence of the Sesan and…
A new study has identified 2050 as the tipping point by which stakeholders in the Mekong Delta will no longer be able to mitigate the issue of saltwater intrusion, which…
For two decades or more, alarms have been sounding for the Mekong Delta. It's being hammered by climate change, by a proliferation of upstream dams, by unsustainable and inappropriate farming…
With 3,700 dams in the planning stages worldwide, it is time for governments and builders to consider the true socio-environmental cost of hydroelectric dams before building them: study.
It is time to move away from large hydroelectric dams in favor of micro-scale energy generation and sustainable alternatives, according to a new report.
Two weeks after a dam in the Xe-Pian Xe-Namnoy hydropower facility collapsed in southern Laos, sending millions of tonnes of water crashing through villages downstream, authorities are still counting the…
An Australian mining company aims to begin searching for minerals, as well as oil and gas, next to part of the Mekong River in Cambodia where the endangered Irrawaddy river…
On Sept. 25, amid a continuing crackdown on media, political opposition and civil society described by commentators as “a slide into dictatorship,” Prime Minister Hun Sen officially launched Cambodia’s biggest…
A damning review of plans for the controversial Pak Beng hydropower dam on the Mekong River in Laos was released this week by US-based advocacy group International Rivers, adding weight…
KRATIE PROVINCE, Cambodia — “If the dam is built, it will be like before, in the time of the Khmer Rouge when we all had to move,” said Plau Saret,…
YUNNAN, China -- The building site of the Wunonglong hydropower dam is not ringed by barbed wire fences and security guards as one might expect. Instead, visitors to this remote…
From the Amazon Basin to boreal forests, and from the Mekong to the Himalayan foothills, rivers worldwide are being targeted for major new dams in a global hydropower boom that…
PAK BENG, Laos — At the Happy Bar, on the bank of the Mekong River, the Bob Marley tape starts up at the same time every night after the tourist…
At a time when much of Cambodia is developing at a breakneck speed, where smartphones and BMWs have become almost as ubiquitous on the streets of Phnom Penh as saffron-robed…
Snaking down the length of the Mekong River the beautifully detailed map looks strikingly like those marking the distribution of unexploded ordnance in Laos. The red dots that pockmark the…
Tun Lin has a unique occupation: he is the security guard at Linno limestone karst cave on the bank of the Salween River in Myanmar’s southeast Karen (Kayin) State. He…
“To most people on earth — even biodiversity scientists — the Salween Basin is like the dark side of the moon." So begins a 2008 study of the flora and…
Before reaching the Keng Kham valley, the bright green Pang river, the Salween’s major tributary running south through central Shan state, splits into three parallel rivers that form myriad channels…
“I just get poorer and poorer,” Leh Paw, a Karen woman recently displaced due to conflict in Myanmar’s Karen (Kayin) state, told Mongabay in November. This is the third time…
Humanity rarely seems to get very excited about conserving fish species, maybe because they are largely invisible to us land-dwelling creatures — except when they arrive on a dinner plate.…
"We held each other's hands and moved slowly in the dark, smiling. We desired, above all, a good night's sleep, but that was not possible as we pressed on to…
This is the final installment of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the first, second and third installments. "I think…
This is the third article of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the first, second and fourth installments. arly this year, many…
This is the second article of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the first, third and fourth installments. othing that influences…
On this episode of the Newscast, Mongabay’s Indonesia-based editor Phil Jacobson makes an in-studio appearance to talk about a new series launched this week focusing on the Mekong Delta. No…
This is the first article of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the second, third and fourth installments. t's a sad…
