P OST reporter Mang Channo has scooped the top prize in the 1995 Environmental

Journalism and Photography Awards, sponsored by the Ministry of

Environment.

Channo's feature on shrimp farmers destroying the mangrove

forests in Koh Kong won him a meal and overnight stay for two at the Cambodiana

hotel, three bottles of Freixenet champagne, a $50 phone card from Telstra and

an English dictionary given by CFBT Education Services.

Channo, 30, also

placed second in the professional photography category with a picture of

mangrove destruction. Associated Press photographer Ou Neakiry's picture of

children stalking the Phnom Penh rubbish dump won first prize.

Channo,

hired in August 1992, was the first full-time Cambodian reporter employed by the

Phnom Penh Post.