Concessions

Economic land concessions (ELCs) are supposed to be transforming Cambodian agriculture into a heavyweight industry and raising the living standards of millions of rural Cambodians, according to government policy documents. ...

More than two-thirds of the 158 land disputes triggered by large-scale plantations over the past two decades have yet to be fully resolved, according to a new report by the NGO Forum on Cambodia.   ...

In 2010, more than 1,500 families in Kampong Speu’s Oral district were evicted from the land they had cultivated since the fall of the Khmer Rouge regime in 1979 to make way for a Phnom Penh Sugar Company mega-plantation.   ...

Despite earlier statements by company representatives that $500 compensation packages being offered to land disputants at Ly Yong Phat’s Kampong Speu economic land concession (ELC) were negotiable, attendees of a meeting between company representatives and residents yesterday said they felt pressured to take the offer. ...

Senior Minister in charge of Special Missions Ly Thuch announced yesterday that a land dispute resolution task force will be created for Ratanakkiri province, although observers said the move was coming too late.   ...

Tensions flared yesterday between 20 Bunong ethnic minority villagers and a coffee company operating on an economic land concession in Mondulkiri’s Pech Chreada district, prompting local authorities to investigate.   ...

Between 2009 and 2012, the Ministry of Environment went on nationwide leasing spree, signing over vast swaths of the country’s nominally protected areas to private companies for rubber plantations and other agribusiness ventures.   ...

More than 300 families in Kompong Speu province this week signed a deal with Senator Ly Yong Phat’s Phnom Penh Sugar Company aimed at ending their long-running land dispute, though several of the families have yet to agree on compensation.   ...

About 100 additional families have accepted compensation pack­ages from Union Deve­lop­ment Group (UDG) to relocate and make way for the massive development project the Chinese firm is building along the coast of Koh Kong province, according to the Environment Ministry.   ...

More than 200 people representing three Preah Vihear province communities were set to discuss land disputes yesterday when police broke up their public forum, according to Tork Hong, a representative of a local community from nearby Prey Lang forest.   ...

Minister of Justice Ang Vong Vattana has weighed in on a prolonged land dispute at the Battambang Provincial Court that has seen three protestors shot and another imprisoned. ...

Some 34 families in Kampong Chhnang’s Lorpeang village yesterday filed a new petition at the provincial hall urging authorities to intervene in a nine-year land dispute with KDC International, which villagers say has reached a bottleneck and is affecting their daily lives. ...

Representatives of 526 Koh Kong families hopped on their motos on Friday morning to deliver petitions to their district town halls calling for the return of land taken from them by a 2006 economic land concession (ELC), as well as compensation for lost crops.   ...

On Friday, it will have been a month since Prime Minister Hun Sen took the stage during the opening of the Environment Ministry’s palatial new headquarters in Phnom Penh to announce that 1 million hectares had been confiscated from wayward landholders and would be doled ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Thursday declared an end to the government’s review of Cambodia’s economic land concessions (ELCs), pledging that nearly 1 million hec­tares of reappropriated property would be handed over to poor families. He also announced a major reorganization of the two ministries ...

Cambodia and Thailand are set to have a new international border crossing on National Road 5, linking Banteay Meanchey province and Thailand’s Sa Kaeo province. ...

The collective land of indigenous communities in Cambodia will continue to face encroachment from economic land concessions and the actions of private companies in the future despite the Cambodian Government’s moratorium on granting ELC licenses, according to a Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) report ...

After a seven-year struggle, a Banteay Meanchey teacher finally got $8,000 in compensation for her land, which was seized by the Cambodian military during a border flare-up with Thailand. ...

More than 220 ethnic Tompuon families in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district yesterday filed a complaint to rights group Adhoc over a 2,000-hectare land dispute against an economic land concession.   ...

The parent company of U.S. apparel giant Timberland has launched an investigation into claims that security guards at a special economic zone in Kandal province viciously attacked the workers that make the brand’s clothing and footwear, a company representative said Wednesday. ...

The government has warned Mong Reththy Group (MRT), an investor in agro-industrial crops such as palm oil and cassava, that it must pay all outstanding back taxes on its economic land concession in Sihanoukville’s Prey Nop district within three months, according to a document received ...

The government is refusing to release copies of letters it claims to have sent to timber traders Try Pheap and Lim Bunna giving them permission to collect already felled wood on a pair of canceled economic land concessions (ELCs) inside a wildlife sanctuary. ...

Roughly 30 villagers locked in a land dispute with Koh Kong Sugar protested at a construction site yesterday where they say the company was attempting to erect a concrete barrier on disputed land. ...

Mong Reththy Group, one of the Kingdom’s largest agro-industrial conglomerates, insisted yesterday that it had settled arrears on its palm oil concession more than six months ago, contrary to local media reports stating the company owed concession rental fees dating back nearly 20 years. ...