Land policy and administration

Police in Kratie province on Wednesday demolished the makeshift tents of about 300 families accused of squatting on public land inside a conservation area, two weeks after they forced many of the same families out of the area. Some of the families say they have lived ...

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 ...

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 ...

The Ministry of Environment will relocate its offices to a plot of land near NagaWorld Hotel and Casino in Phnom Penh’s Chamkar Mon district after its planned new headquarters in Meanchey district were declared too far from the city’s center by the new environment minister, ...

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 ...

Five families from Oddar Meanchey province’s Samraong district have filed a complaint with district authorities and rights group Adhoc in a bid to reclaim more than 16 hectares of land they allege was sold to other villagers by their village chief without their permission. Adhoc provincial ...

Lawmakers-elect from the Cambodia National Rescue Party are scheduled today to visit families in Koh Kong province affected by a long-running land dispute with Union Development Group, just weeks after the company destroyed dozens of homes there. Rights groups say that Chinese-owned Union Development has burned ...

The Court of Appeal on Friday overruled a decision by the Municipal Court ordering the company 7NG Group to provide a total of $195,000 in compensation to 13 families whose houses were destroyed during the violent eviction of the Dey Krahorm community in 2009. “The Court ...

Borei Keila residents on Thursday cast a symbolic curse on the people they say are responsible for making their lives a misery since violently evicting them from their homes two years ago. In the latest development in the long-running dispute, security guards and riot police last ...

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 ...

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 ...

Two residents of the Borei Keila community remained hospitalized Sunday after a Valentine’s Day clash with authorities on Friday that left 19 people injured, a community representative said. Although most of the 19 were only slightly injured, two women were more severely hurt and are still ...

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 ...

At least six people were injured on Friday when a small group of Borei Keila villagers were evicted from the grounds of an unfinished building in Phnom Penh that they began occupying this week in a bid to draw attention to a years-long fight for ...

A group of eight villagers from Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces facing displacement by the construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam lodged a petition Thursday with the Chinese Embassy and three ministries demanding that the developer negotiate with them. “The affected families have never been ...

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 ...

More than 60 wooden homes in Pursat province were burned to the ground Wednesday by officials in Veal Veng district, who claimed that the owners were living on state land, rights group Licadho said. “On Wednesday morning, police, military police, RCAF soldiers and the deputy provincial ...

Residents embroiled in a long-running land dispute in the Borei Keila area of Phnom Penh’s Prampi Makara district on Wednesday tore down three metal fences and occupied an unfinished apartment block at the site. The fences were felled with axes by irate residents, who took the ...

In 2009, a railway project official arrived at 45-year-old Ry Preng’s home in Por Sen Chey district and spray-painted “1.042” in red on the side of his house. He wasn’t sure what it meant, but was told that at some point he would need to ...

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 ...

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 ...

Newly approved plans by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to fix mistakes it made on a $143 million railway project appear to water down recommendations proposed by the Bank’s own review panel, and could impose the costs of the plan on the very families who ...

About 200 villagers locked in a land dispute with the Chinese-owned Union Development Group (UDG) in Koh Kong province said they were warned on Friday that “paratroopers” would be brought in if they continued to block a road to the company’s headquarters in Botum Sakor ...

About 140 villagers in Koh Kong province set up a roadblock for the second consecutive day Thursday, demanding compensation from a Chinese company they say burned down their homes to make way for part of a multibillion-dollar tourist resort, according to a rights worker and ...