Photo: Prey Lang Network members return home from Paris with the the 2015 Equator Prize. By @UNDP Cambodia.

The Cambodian Government recently delivered a set of ambitious goals that outline how the country plans to take part in achieving the carbon reductions set forth in the UN climate meeting in Paris – the COP21.

The Indigenous Kuy people of the Prey Lang forest of Cambodia are increasing their efforts in the campaign to promote conservation of their lands and against deforestation by the government and corporations with a new smartphone application to help them better report on what is going on.

Cambodian monks have been mobilizing in the streets since July 2015 to demand stronger government action against the rapid deforestation of Prey Lang, the largest lowland dry evergreen forest in Cambodia and Indochina Peninsula.

By the Phnom Penn Post

The extent of the devastation of Cambodia’s forests was brought into sharp relief as 2013 drew to a close, with a series of detailed maps and satellite data released by NGOs showing the drastic depletion of the Kingdom’s woodland ecosystems.

Images released by Open Development Cambodia (ODC) earlier this month showed that the ratio of forest cover has fallen from about 72 percent in 1973 to only 46 per cent this year.

National Public Radio's All Things Considered is running a two-part series on the relationship between China’s need for raw materials and the exploitation of Cambodia’s resources, specifically destruction of its forests. The first part of the program, which is set in Prey Lang, can be heard here: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/29/170580214/as-china-builds-cambodias-forests-fall

Cambodian human rights activists showed once again that they are on cutting edge of pop culture by performing a choreographed dance to a land rights themed version of the viral video "Gangnam Style" in Phnom Penn. 

Activists in Cambodia are feeling the heavy hand of the government. Threats, intimidation and, in extreme cases, even murder have been occurring in the country.

In a great victory, four Economic Land concessions that had been authorized in the Prey Lang forest of Cambodia have been cancelled.  The concessions, totaling 40,618 hectares, would have allowed for the clear-cutting of pristine primary forests in order to grow rubber plantations, adding to a long list of other concessions that threaten the Prey Lang forest.