Land policy and administration

The barren land near Cambodian villager Ren Meas’ home used to yield cashew nut and root vegetable crops. Now the vast expanse lies bare and dry, levelled by bulldozers and set to become yet another rubber tree plantation. Australians are helping to combat the so-called land ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen said Monday that a recent decision to put the Mines and Energy Ministry in charge of all aspects of granting sand dredging licenses had to be made, because authorities were refusing to take responsibility for a process that has been blamed ...

Families living on contested land on Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva peninsula were on Wednesday given a choice by municipal governor Pa Socheatvong: give up 90 percent of your land and live on the remainder or sell it all at $40 per square meter. ...

A series of land disputes have shook a pair of communities in Preah Vihear province, resulting in violent scuffles and tense standoffs between government actors and members of the Kuoy ethnic minority. In Rovieng district, more than 140 families living in the Boeung Tonle Mrech community, ...

Representatives of 163 families from Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district submitted a request to the Agriculture Ministry on Monday to meet with Minister Ouk Rabun over his request that the Phnom Penh Municipal Court delay the allocation of nearly a hectare of land the families ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday sided with real estate tycoon Khun Sear and his eponymous company in a longstanding land dispute with a family living adjacent to an apartment block he obtained in a land swap, the family’s lawyer said Thursday. ...

More than 200 families embroiled in a land dispute in Battambang province have filed a complaint to the National Assembly’s anti-corruption commission, accusing a commune chief in Bavel district of colluding with the provincial director of land management to solicit bribes for land titles.​ ...

Three villagers from Oddar Meanchey province’s Trapaing Prasat district were illegally detained and beaten on Monday by a group of soldiers from the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces’ Number 6 Brigade over a land dispute, victims and rights group Adhoc said yesterday. ...

About 100 villagers representing 19 communities in Preah Sihanouk province marched to the provincial hall in Sihanoukville on Tuesday, demanding intervention in their land disputes. ...

Villagers in Banteay Meanchey province on Saturday protested against a local military official’s plan to build a reservoir on their land, then sell the dirt at a profit. ...

Dismissing a recent report showing a sharp increase in land disputes, the government has said such conflicts are in fact decreasing and formally called on rights group Licadho to release its findings. Licadho reported last week that it recorded about three times as many new land ...

fter rights group Licadho released a statement Thursday saying that more than 10,000 Cambodian families were newly affected last year by land disputes in the 13 provinces where it has monitors—a three-fold increase from 2013—a government spokesman on Friday slammed the NGO’s report as “baseless ...

More than 100 staff members of the Phnom Penh Referral Hospital and 7 Makara Health Care Center met the capital’s health director yesterday to discuss concerns about a land swap after a recent announcement that part of the hospitals lost their land title. The meeting came ...

A group of opposition lawmakers on Wednesday began an investigation into a proposed government land swap in Kampot they fear may have questionable motivations. ...

In a new report, U.K. environmental rights group Global Witness places Cambodian timber magnate Try Pheap at the heart of a vast illegal logging operation driving the country’s rarest tree species to the brink of extinction with the collusion of government and military officials. “The Cost ...

More than 100 families in Rattanakkiri’s O’Chum district are demanding a solution after a Chinese company allegedly bulldozed their land and nearby family graves to create a rubber plantation. ...

A 10-year-old girl was killed in­stantly when a piece of unexploded ordinance (UXO) detonated un­der the heat of a brush fire in in Kompong Speu province’s Oral district on Sunday afternoon, her commune chief said Monday.   ...

About 50 protesters, mainly from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, demonstrated Wednesday morning outside City Hall to demand that governor Pa Socheatvong help them stay within their eviction-hit communities. ...

Siem Reap officials yesterday promised almost 100 protesters a resolution to a land dispute between villagers and a military unit.​ ...

After promising in September to quickly resolve a years-long land dispute involving villagers and the politically connected development company KDC International, a member of the National Assembly’s human rights commission visited affected families in Kampong Chhnang province yesterday.​ ...

A couple was arrested in Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district yesterday morning after the woman in the pair – a local land activist – protested against being moved from the area to make way for a local infrastructure project. Military police, forestry police and other ...

Some Siem Reap families are balking at the Apsara Authority’s order for them to leave their homes – which were allegedly constructed illegally – and move to a government-provided settlement by Friday. ...

The European Union will speak to Cambodia’s government on behalf of two communities in Battambang involved in land disputes, according to the rights group Adhoc. ...

Minority Kuoy and Phnong community members from Preah Vihear and Mondulkiri provinces are demanding that the government cancel economic land concessions granted to two Chinese companies and a Vietnamese firm for allegedly violating land laws. In a press conference yesterday in Phnom Penh, representatives from the ...