Agriculture

After overseeing the destruction of all but six of 172 temporary shelters that had been erected on farmland claimed by an ethnic Bunong community in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday, authorities returned to destroy the remaining structures Wednesday, again on the grounds that the land belonged ...

Representatives for some 200 families in a yearslong land dispute with the Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province met for the first time with both company and government officials Tuesday but left with little to show. ...

Police in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday burned down more than 130 shelters belonging to a community of ethnic Bunong families in Keo Seima district that authorities accuse of squatting on a Vietnam­ese rubber plantation, a local official said. ...

Incensed by the prime minister’s assertion last week that the “same faces” always show up at protests, a group of Phnom Penh’s most prominent anti-eviction activists picketed City Hall on Monday to vent their anger. ...

Cambodia should urgently disclose all information about land ownership and rethink its “wholesale sell-off” of the country’s natural resources, a local rights group said yesterday. The call to release information about Cambodia’s land sector, including a declaration of revenues, came as Licadho released an analysis of ...

Villagers in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc against a logging company they say has claimed more than 9,000 hectares of community forest as its own and threatened residents against using the land. ...

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 ...

Despite Cambodia’s indigenous peoples being legally recognised and protected under the country’s Forestry and Land Laws, limited implementation combined with a lack of coordination have resulted in many indigenous communities being denied their land and legal rights, according to a report released this month by ...

Seoung Sarat survived several bloody Cambodian regimes and civil wars. But only when his country was at peace was he shot and lost a leg. The indigenous Tompuon man, now living in a borrowed home in the forest of Ratanakiri province, says he lost his right ...

More than 100 ethnic Phnong families embroiled in a land dispute with Vietnamese firm Binh Phuoc Kratie Co in Mondulkiri’s Keo Seima district yesterday refused authorities’ requests to submit thumbprints as part of a suggested resolution to the issue, out of fear they would be ...

Botum Sakor national park is one of Cambodia’s biodiversity hotspots, where indigenous tribes have long lived in harmony with the forest and its wildlife, writes Rod Harbinson. But now they are being violently evicted as the park is being sold off piecemeal to developers for ...

Villagers in Koh Kong province involved in a land dispute with a Chinese company received notice on Saturday that the local government will soon implement a court order kicking them off their land, officials and a villager said. ...

Some 200 monks, villagers and land rights activists came together in Siem Reap province’s Chi Kreng district on Saturday to mark the six-year anniversary of the day that police opened fire on a group of farmers protesting their impending eviction. ...

City Hall announced Friday that the vast majority of remaining evictees from Phnom Penh’s Borei Keila neighborhood—who were left landless after a development firm failed to provide adequate housing for hundreds in the community—will not be rehoused in the area. ...

A visiting delegation from the European Union met with the Cambodia Rice Federation yesterday to discuss concerns raised by Italian rice producers, who say duty-free Cambodian rice imports are undercutting the Italian market. Sok Puthyvuth, president of the Cambodia Rice Federation, said yesterday that the purpose ...

The president of Kampong Thom Cashew Nut Association has urged government officials to implement a policy to increase cashew production, as a huge opportunity was being wasted by both the government and farmers he said.​ ...

A year after some 2,000 families filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) for financing rubber plantations they accuse of grabbing their farms and logging their sacred forests, all sides have finally agreed to a set of ground rules for negotiations and hope ...

Vietnam has gained a substantial share of Hong Kong’s rice market at the expense of Thailand, resulting from fierce competition over the past 10 years. Thailand’s market share in the first month of this year was up to 65.1 per cent versus Vietnam’s 26.3 per ...

Vietnam has agreed to join Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia in a regional trading network aimed at shoring up rubber prices. Thailand has lobbied other rubber-producing countries in the region, including Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar, to form the council. Officials are expected to meet on April ...

More than 160 families in Banteay Meanchey province’s O’Chrou district filed a complaint on Monday with local officials calling for the removal of their village chief, whom they blame for the loss of 835 hectares of farmland to a rubber plantation. ...

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries yesterday cancelled an import permit for a Cambodian company after it came to light that “natural fertilizer” it had ordered from Ukraine was composed largely of cigarette butts, a ministry statement said. ...

About 70 villagers representing hundreds of families living in Battambang City’s Prek Preah Sdech commune protested outside the provincial hall Tuesday over fears that local authorities intend to evict them to make way for military families. ...

A man hired by a purported representative of a fertiliser company to haul 30 tonnes of “natural fertiliser” from Thbong Khmum province to Oddar Meanchey province some three months ago was surprised to learn this week that the load actually consisted entirely of cigarette butts. ...

A plantation company with its sights set on a community forest long used by local ethnic minority Jarai in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district arranged a meeting with more than 200 villagers this week to try to persuade them to sign over the woodland. Representatives of the Heng ...