Land
Public land lease
Land activists ask to speed up land dispute solution
About 50 Borei Keila and Boeung Kok residents held a protest on Wednesday in front of Phnom Penh City Hall, asking it to speed up land solution. The protesters held banners showing picture of developer Shukaku Inc pumping sand to fill up the Boeung Kok, ...
The Cambodia Herald
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=YWI1YzYxY2ZiNDA
Borei Keila suit filed
Seven people from the capital’s Borei Keila community allegedly injured by baton-wielding security forces last month, a pregnant woman among them, filed a lawsuit against Prampi Makara district authorities yesterday. The seven were among a group of dozens of families violently removed from a building on ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/borei-keila-suit-filed
Family’s world shrinks daily
Dozens of trucks, bulldozers and excavators have pushed Var Sokhoeurn to the edge of his remaining land at the Lower Sesan II dam site in Stung Treng province’s Srepok district. When Post reporters visited Sokhoeurn’s family last month, much of his land, where he grew cassava and other ...
Phak Seangly and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/family%E2%80%99s-world-shrinks-daily
Vietnamese charged with illegal logging
The Mondolkiri Provincial Court on Tuesday charged 15 Vietnamese nationals with illegally crossing the border and logging protected forest, four days after the group was detained by members of the ethnic Bunong minority in a community forest 20 km from the border. Ya Narin, director of ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/vietnamese-charged-with-illegal-logging-53975/
Government-formed land dispute committee suspected of bias
The Kompong Chhnang provincial government has set up a new committee to help settle a long-running land dispute between local farmers and a company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, but a representative of the villagers has not been invited ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-formed-land-dispute-committee-suspected-of-bias-53851/
A refined approach?
Hundreds of trucks hauling sugarcane queue up along the dusty roads that cut a path through a plantation in Kampong Speu province. Their destination: Cambodia’s most advanced sugar refinery. Its owners say the landmark project, run by the Phnom Penh Sugar Company and its president, ruling ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/refined-approach
Locals seeking justice after ‘broken deal’
Villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district are demanding their land back, claiming buyers from a local company failed to uphold a 2007 deal. The 66 ethnic Kreung families filed a complaint on Friday after workers from a nearby rubber plantation started to slash and burn the 400 ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/locals-seeking-justice-after-%E2%80%98broken-deal%E2%80%99
Families in Boeng Kak asked to give up land for titles
Families still waiting for promised land titles in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood said Sunday that the municipal government is offering to give them their long-awaited tenure rights only if they agree to give up part of their land. About 100 Boeng Kak families were left ...
Zsombor Peter and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-in-boeng-kak-asked-to-give-up-land-for-titles-53749/
City Hall wants World Bank, NGOs to compensate evicted families
Representatives of some of the 3,000 families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in recent years said Thursday that municipal government officials, who were ultimately responsible for the mass evictions, told them they would be inviting the World Bank and NGOs to help compensate ...
Boeung Kak protester trio detained, released
In yet another case of district security guards assuming the role of police officers, three evictees of the capital’s Boeung Kak lake area were detained in the capital yesterday morning and taken to a police station. Daun Penh district security guards seized Em Srey Touch, 41, ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/boeung-kak-protester-trio-detained-released
Palm oil plantation accused of withholding workers’ pay
More than 20 families working on a controversial palm oil plantation in Ratanakkiri province owned by the Hoang Anh Lumphat company have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing the owners of improperly withholding one month’s pay. Lor Sophal said he and another 22 families, ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/palm-oil-plantation-accused-of-withholding-workers-pay-53520/
Development pushes poor from land as Cambodia dams its rivers
“From my view, I don’t want to have it, but it is development, we can’t stop them,” says Srekor’s village chief, Leang Saroeurn. Cambodia’s impressive yearly GDP growth rates of 7 percent for the last decade have come, in part, through a ravenous consumption of the countries ...
Daniel Quinlan
http://asiancorrespondent.com/120212/development-drives-displacement-as-cambodia-dams-its-rivers/
Angry villagers block dusty quarry road in Takeo province
About 300 angry villagers blocked a dusty road in Takeo province’s Bati district on Friday, demanding that three quarrying firms follow through on promises to pave it, a local official said Sunday. The villagers are unhappy that the quarrying firms’ trucks kick up massive amounts of ...
Eang Mengleng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/angry-villagers-block-dusty-quarry-road-in-takeo-province-53403/
Families file complaint over Pailin governor
The 19 families in Pailin province who were told by police and military police on Saturday to vacate their land filed a complaint with Adhoc on Monday, the provincial coordinator for the NGO said. Authorities told the families to move on Saturday from the 95-hectares they ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-file-complaint-over-pailin-governor-53443/
Pailin governor orders 19 families to move off his land
More than 60 police and military police informed 19 families farming on a plot of land in Pailin province’s Sala Krao district on Saturday that they would have to move as they were growing crops on state land. However, Prak Sophima, provincial coordinator for rights group ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/pailin-governor-orders-19-families-to-move-off-his-land-53397/
NGO declares Coca-Cola’s visit compromised by police
Auditors from the Coca-Cola Company visited Oddar Meanchey province on Friday to investigate allegations of land grabbing against sugar plantations that supply the global drinks giant, but called off a community meeting because of a heavy police presence, an NGO said Sunday. Chun Bora of the ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ngo-declares-coca-colas-visit-compromised-by-police-53395/
Rare statue unearthed by Chinese developer
A Chinese-owned company in Preah Vihear’s Tbeng Meanchey district stumbled across an 8th-century sandstone carving of the Buddha while excavating land there on Wednesday, the provincial culture department said yesterday. Oug Vireak, a deputy with the culture department, said the firm Lan Feng had been bulldozing ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/rare-statue-unearthed-chinese-developer
Complaints against rubber company to be assessed, World Bank Office says
The World Bank’s ombudsman office says it will assess a complaint from indigenous groups in Ratanakkiri province that a bank-supported company has damaged the forest and surrounding communities. Seventeen different groups joined in the complaint, claiming the Hoang Anh Gia Lai rubber company, which receives ...
Environment minister visits UDG; Villagers disappointed
Environment Minister Say Sam Al failed to meet the villagers locked in a long-running land dispute with the Chinese-owned company Union Development Group (UDG) on Wednesday, despite visiting company officials in Koh Kong province, according to a rights worker and a provincial official. Mr. Sam Al ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/environment-minister-visits-udg-villagers-disappointed-53277/
IFC accepts complaint over Ratanakkiri rubber plantations
The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ifc-accepts-complaint-over-ratanakkiri-rubber-plantations-53251/
Forest promises ‘unfulfilled’
As illegal logging continues to take a toll on the country’s woodlands, civil society groups yesterday called on the government to stay true to its commitment of providing an extra two million hectares of community forest by 2029. During a two-day conference in the capital, participants ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/forest-promises-%E2%80%98unfulfilled%E2%80%99
More pre-Angkorian temples found within land concessions
Seven pre-Angkorian temples have been discovered on two land concessions in Preah Vihear province, but while an Environment Ministry official said Tuesday that the ministry had no knowledge of the temples when they granted the concessions, the Culture Ministry said their existence had long been ...
Denise Hruby and Sek Odom
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/more-pre-angkorian-temples-found-within-land-concessions-53263/
Environment minister to visit UDG project in Koh Kong province
Environment Minister Say Sam Al is scheduled to visit Koh Kong province today, while a representative of Chinese-owned company Union Development Group said the minister is expected to pay a visit to their 45,000hectare land concession, which has been the cause of a long-running land ...
Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/environment-minister-to-visit-udg-project-in-koh-kong-province-53249/
UDG accused of farming instead of building
The Chinese-owned Union Development Group in Koh Kong province is bulldozing swaths of its land concession, originally intended for a massive tourist resort, to plant cassava and palm oil trees instead, a CNRP lawmaker-elect said Monday. Son Chhay, lawmaker-elect and CNRP chief whip, visited the area ...
Lauren Crothers and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/udg-accused-of-farming-instead-of-building-53164/