Land

In a rare acknowledgement of deforestation concerns, Deputy Prime Minister Sok An, chairman of the National Commission for UNESCO, said the widespread clearing of forests around Angkor Wat was harming views of the historic temple complex. Sok An made the remarks in Siem Reap at a ...

Eight representatives of Phnom Penh communities involved in land disputes were allowed to present their petitions to the Council of Ministers yesterday after authorities blocked about 200 of their fellow petitioners from gathering in front of the Peace Palace. During a meeting with the representatives, Bun ...

A group of local property agents has initiated a monthly gathering for real estate professionals and those interested in the industry to meet and share business ideas and industry insights. The first of the monthly gatherings, known as Real Estate Monday, was held this week at ...

Real estate prices in Kampong Chhang province have increased by around 10 per cent over the last 12 months, according to experts. Dith Chana, general manager of VMC Real Estate Cambodia, said that Kampong Chhnang is only 91 kilometres from Phnom Penh, but the development of ...

Phnom Penh, which currently has six satellite cities under development, may be jumping the gun in terms of the demand for them, according to a new report from global real estate firm CBRE. In its latest MarketView report, CBRE says bluntly that currently “demand for satellite ...

Foreign renters are vacating apartments in Phnom Penh’s central Daun Penh district and opting for cheaper, more spacious and better-equipped living spaces elsewhere in the city, realtors and landlords say. As a result, landlords in Daun Penh are being forced to decrease rental prices to try ...

Opposition party whip Son Chhay reiterated his call at a press conference yesterday for the government to raise taxes on economic land concessions from $5 to $7 a hectare up to $70 through an amendment to the draft of the 2013 budget. The Sam Rainsy Party ...

More than 100 people in Kratie province staged a peaceful protest on Sunday after excavators mobilized by a South Korean timber firm tried to clear and demarcate concession land, a commune official said yesterday. The company, Think Biotech, was granted 34,000 hectares of land on May ...

About 50 Boeng Kak residents protested outside Prime Minister Hun Sne’s Peace Palace yesterday and submitted a petition to the Council of Minister asking for land titles in their long-running dispute with a company part-owned by CPP senator Lao Meng Khin. ...

About 60 land activists including children marched to the Peace Palace Monday to welcome Prime Minister Hun Sen’s position on outside involvement in land disputes. The residents of two property development sites and Thmor Kol community near Phnom Penh International Airport also presented a list of ...

Local authorities have stepped in to halt construction around a disputed land concession in Ratanakkiri province in an attempt to discover whether the company has the right to clear forest that residents claim they depend on to survive. In what appears to be a rare showing ...

Following our investigation which highlighted allegations of human rights abuses in Cambodia’s sugar industry, activists are stepping up their campaign against sugar companies buying from the region. The call to boycott sugar company Tate and Lyle over allegations of illegal land seizures and human rights ...

Until the arrival of large-scale development around her home in the northeastern province of Ratanakkiri, Sav Samourn, a member of the ethnic Jarai minority, was frightened of wild animals and ghosts. But as trees disappeared and industrial machinery razed the forestland, the old fears fell away. ...

The growing market for timber in China is leading to widespread logging around the world, including in Cambodia, according to a report released yesterday. The report from London-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) – entitled Appetite for Destruction: China’s trade in illegal timber – outlines ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has reclassified 4,158 hectares of a massive land concession owned by the wife of Senator Lao Meng Khin from his own party for displaced families in Kampong Chhnang province. A jubilant representative of the 4,506 families who have long battled against ...

Though they held out hope for years that they would get communal land titles, hundreds of ethnic minority families in Mondolkiri and Ratanakkiri provinces have now opted to accept individual private land titles under Prime Minister Hun Sen’s new titling scheme. While individual titles offer immediate ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen is to distribute land titles next month to 700 families squatting on 1,109 hectares of land in Domnak Chong’er district in Kep province, sources said ...

Three projects of the six satellite cities around Phnom Penh that were originally approved by the government have been “significantly” developed, according to officials of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction. Lao Tepseiha, deputy director of the construction department of the Ministry ...

Land disputes are expected to be a hot issue in next year’s election, overshadowing perennial issues such as illegal immigration, destruction of forests, corruption, and unemployment. Prime Minister Hun Sen himself has acknowledged that the government’s failure to resolve the issue will mean handing ammunition to ...

The massive and highly controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam project took a major step forward yesterday with the inking of government power purchase agreements and an investment deal between Royal Group and a Chinese company. But details about the contracts, their implementation or the fate of ...

Rights groups said they will continue to advocate in land grabbing and eviction cases, and villagers involved in such disputes said they will continue to turn to NGOs for help despite a warning by Prime Minister Hun Sen for civil society to stay clear of ...

The custodians of a community forest in Ratanakkiri have accused a company of illegally bulldozing their protected jungle. Sen Youn, a representative of the Jarai ethnic minority in O’Yadav district’s Lumchor commune, said yesterday an investigation with rights groups had uncovered that the Chea Chanrith Development ...

Forestry Administrative officials in Battambang province have again halted logging and clearing inside a community forest and are attempting to prevent student volunteers deployed by the Ministry of Land Management from demarcating land in already cleared areas, local officials said last week. ...

KOH KONG, CAMBODIA — A Thai force dubbed the “Rambo Army” couldn’t stop the gangs, armed with battlefield weaponry, as they scoured the forests. Neither could a brave activist, gunned down when he came to investigate. Nor, apparently, can governments across Southeast Asia. The root of the ...