Agro-industrial production
Economic land concessions and plantations
Kings of concessions
Vietnam and China lead the pack of foreign companies granted economic land concessions in Cambodia for agro-industrial development by a wide margin, new data released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries show. According to the ministry’s annual report, released last month, since 1993 the ...
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/kings-concessions
Government tries to solve land dispute by talking from others
Several dozen families in Banteay Meanchey province involved in land dispute were given 100 hectares of replacement land in O’Chrou district yesterday, but have refused to accept it because it is already claimed by more than 230 other families, two village chiefs said. The provincial government ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-tries-to-solve-land-dispute-by-taking-from-others-52614/
Court grills villagers on fence suit
Twelve Preah Vihear villagers were called to court this week regarding an ongoing land dispute they claim has resulted in the bulldozing of their family land and livelihood. The villagers are among some 67 families in Kulen district’s Srayong Cheung village who say the government sold ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/court-grills-villagers-fence-suit
More Wood Confiscations in Kampot, but Still No Arrests
The Forestry Administration in Kampot province on Tuesday confiscated about 2 cubic meters of illegal timber from a truck in Toek Chhou district’s Stung Keo commune, officials said. The bust is at least the third in a week, with forestry officials confiscating 200 pieces of illegal ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/more-wood-confiscations-in-kampot-but-still-no-arrests-52598/
World Bank To Review Environmental Complaints Against Company
The World Bank says it will investigate reports from indigenous groups in Cambodia that a company funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation is involved in deforestation and land grabs. The bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman, or CAO, will first examine the credibility of ...
Sok Khemara
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/world-bank-to-review-environmental-complaints-against-company/1853122.html
Raids uncover 200 pieces of illegal luxury wood
The Forestry Administration in Preah Vihear province on Saturday raided a remote cabin in Choam Ksan district where they found 200 pieces of illegally felled luxury wood, police said Sunday. The 15 cubic meters of wood uncovered included the Thnong, Beng and Neang Noun varieties, and ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/raids-uncover-200-pieces-of-illegal-luxury-wood-52333/
Preah Vihear villagers continue to protest
More than 30 families continued to demonstrate in Preah Vihear province’s Chheb district on Friday and Saturday over what they say is the illegal clearing of land by a Chinese company, villagers said Sunday. The families accuse Rui Feng (Cambodia) International of clearing 500 hectares of ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/preah-vihear-villagers-continue-to-protest-52347/
Kratie villagers block road after officials torch homes
Police and military police in Kratie province’s Snuol district on Wednesday burned to the ground 56 homes they said were on protected land, causing displaced villagers to block National Road 76 in protest for four hours, officials said. Snuol district Governor Kong Kimny said Thursday that ...
Aun Pheap and Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/kratie-villagers-block-road-after-officials-torch-homes-52232/
Ministries to Help Farmers Hurt by Sugar Plantations
The government on Monday agreed to a comprehensive solution for rural families who have lost their land to well-connected agricultural plantations exporting sugar to the European Union (E.U.) duty free and will meet again early next month to discuss details. The decision was made at a ...
Hul Reaksmey and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ministries-to-help-farmers-hurt-by-sugar-plantations-51971/
Minorities complain to IFC over rubber farm funding
More than a dozen ethnic minority communities from Cambodia’s northeast filed a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on Monday, accusing it of breaking its own safeguard policies by investing in rubber plantations they say are stealing their land and illegally logging their forests. The ...
Aun Pheap and Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/minorities-complain-to-ifc-over-rubber-farm-funding-51868/
More than 20 police surround RCAF general’s Mondolkiri home
In the weeks that 17-year-old garment worker Yon Chea languished in prison, he spent hours staring out of the window at a concrete wall, certain that he would never see his home or his family again. “I never thought I would get out. There was a ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/more-than-20-police-surround-rcaf-generals-mondolkiri-home-51769/
Families to file complaint with IFC over rubber plantations
Some of the hundreds of families losing land and community forest to Vietnamese-owned rubber plantations in Cambodia’s northeast will this week file a complaint with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) over the investment it has made in the plantations’ parent company. Eang Vuthy, executive director of ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-to-file-complaint-with-ifc-over-rubber-plantations-51765/
Sugar Firm Offers Defense After Call for Probe of EU Trade Links
The director of a CPP senator’s sugar plantation accused of stealing land from hundreds of families said Wednesday that most locals were happy with the new jobs the plantation has generated, a week after a visiting European Union parliamentarian renewed calls for an investigation of ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sugar-firm-offers-defense-after-call-for-probe-of-eu-trade-links-51545/
Villagers Sued for Property Damage by Company
Four villagers locked in a land dispute with an agribusiness firm in Banteay Meanchey province said Tuesday that they had been summonsed to the provincial court over a property damage lawsuit filed by the company. The suit was originally filed last year, but villagers said they ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-sued-for-property-damage-by-company-51458/
Three key Ministers take actions to protect the State’s land
Three Ministers from the Ministry of Urbanization and Construction, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Environment have met to jointly set out work-plan to manage state’s land and natural resources. The work-plan will be undertaken in line with the Government’s land policy introduced ...
The Cambodia Herald News Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=OWQyMWQyZTk1ZWM
Reforestry Claim ‘A Stretch’
The government reforested 80,693 hectares of land between 2008 and 2012 as part of its efforts to combat deforestation, a recent agriculture ministry report says, but these seemingly impressive statistics were reached by counting rubber trees and other agricultural crops as adequate replacements for forests. The ...
May Titthara and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/reforestry-claim-%E2%80%98-stretch%E2%80%99
EU Parliamentarian Finds Abuses Fueled by Trade Scheme
Sugar plantations that benefit from the European Union’s Everything But Arms (EBA) scheme, which allows preferential access to the E.U.’s market, have further impoverished Cambodia’s poor, and an investigation needs to be launched, a member of the European Parliament (MEP) said on Friday. Patrice Tirolien, MEP ...
Denise Hruby
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eu-parliamentarian-finds-abuses-fueled-by-trade-scheme-51188/
EU Parliamentarian Probes Sugar Plantations in Cambodia
A member of the European Parliament is in Cambodia investigating agri-business firms accused of evicting hundreds of families while benefiting from a free-trade scheme with Europe worth millions of dollars, according to the NGO Equitable Cambodia. The visit from France’s Patrice Tirolien follows a resolution the ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/eu-parliamentarian-probes-sugar-plantations-in-cambodia-51166/
New Cambodian Land Disputes Despite Moratorium on Key Concessions
At least 41 new land disputes were reported in Cambodia last year despite a government moratorium on the widespread grant of so-called economic land concessions, a rights group said Thursday. The new cases in 17 locations—including the capital Phnom Penh—added to the 223 land conflicts previously ...
Joshua Lipes
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/disputes-01302014194318.html
Kuoy tribe says 7,000 hectares overrun by Chinese companies
With a Cambodian delegation in Geneva defending its human rights efforts, a minority group in Preah Vihear province is calling for the cancellation of two licenses for Chinese companies accused of grabbing thousands of hectares of land. ...
Kong Sothanarith, VOA Khmer
http://www.voacambodia.com/content/kuoy-tribe-says-7000-hectares-overrun-by-chinese-companies/1839370.html
IDEMITSU of Japan to build bio-fuel factory in Cambodia in 2015
A world class Japanese Company, IDEMITSU, will build a bio-fuel factory in Cambodia in 2015, and will commence exploring bio-fuel in Cambodia for the first time in 2017, Mr. Heng Ratana, General Director of Cambodian Mine Action Centre (CMAC) told reporters yesterday. IDEMITSU has been ...
The Cambodia Herald
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=NjQ3MGQ1NmRlY2R
New protection for giant ibis
A newly demarcated wildlife and forest protection zone designed to safeguard Cambodia’s national bird, the giant ibis, along with a number of other endangered species, has been approved after more than 10 years in the making. A government sub-decree approving a protection zone spanning 66,932 hectares ...
Chhay Channyda
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-protection-giant-ibis
Villagers in Land Dispute Detain Workers, Confiscate Equipment
Villagers involved in a land dispute in Battambang province on Monday temporarily detained six men working for an agribusiness firm who were preparing the disputed land to be cleared, residents and police said. The six workers were using mine detectors to check for unexploded ordnance in ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-in-land-dispute-detain-workers-confiscate-equipment-50594/
Jailed UK Businessman Faces Fresh Charges
The Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court laid fresh charges of money laundering on the detained chairman of an embattled British investment firm on Friday, the same day that a provincial official was arrested in relation to fraud charges the businessman was already facing, a court official ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/jailed-uk-businessman-faces-fresh-charges-50494/