Land policy and administration

Minister of Water Resources and Meteorology Lim Kean Hor said Monday that he would seek an investigation into a $1.5-million haul of river sand exported to India in April in spite of a ban on the export of dredged sand handed down by Prime Minister ...

Koh Kong Sugar has offered to settle its yearslong dispute with Cambodian families who accuse its plantations of stealing their land, but the farmers remain wary of being able to secure a fair deal. The firm, a subsidiary of Thailand’s Khon Kaen Sugar Industry Limited (KSL), ...

Declaring that it has “zero tolerance” towards land grabbing, Coca-Cola has agreed to investigate a long running case in Cambodia where villagers are seeking court action against a company accused of seizing their land to make way for plantations linked to the supply of sugar ...

Fauna and Flora International says its has found three previously unknown populations of the endangered Indochinese hog deer in Cambodia. “This is a remarkable discovery given not only the species’ vulnerability to hunting, but also because all of the sites were outside the existing protected area ...

Cambodia has seen a 46 percent rise in dry rubber export in the first ten months of 2013 thanks to rising global demand, said the report of the Commerce Ministry on Friday. The country exported 62,915 tons of dry rubber during the January-October period this year, ...

Defence lawyers representing well-known businesswoman Chhin Sokountheary, also known as the “Crocodile Grandma”, requested the Court of Appeal to consider voiding the tycoon’s warrant for arrest yesterday. Sokountheary was convicted for encroaching on public land and sentenced in absentia to four years and six months in ...

A huge haul of river sand dredged in Cambodia has been quarantined at the southern Indian port city of Cochin since its arrival in April despite a ban on sand exports instituted by Prime Minister Hun Sen in 2009. India’s Deccan Chronicle news­paper reported on Tuesday ...

It’s taken years of waiting – and protesting – but families in the capital’s Boeung Kak community yesterday saw City Hall officials measure land in their villages. Representatives of the city were deployed yesterday to villages 24, 22 and 6 to demarcate land as a step ...

CPP lawmaker Chheang Vun on Wednesday lauded the economic and social benefits of the widespread clearing of Cambodia’s forests for development projects. Speaking to reporters at the National Assembly after a meeting with the Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Anh Dzung, Mr. Vun, who is also the spokesman ...

After repeatedly equivocating about whether it has lifted a 2011 freeze on new lending to Cambodia in response to the government’s forced evictions of families in Phnom Penh, the World Bank has said that the suspension is still firmly in place. “The World Bank has not ...

Evictees and anti-eviction activists on Wednesday briefly scuffled with police and security guards after cutting off traffic in front of Phnom Penh City Hall to demand that businesswoman Suy Sophan compensate them for homes that were bulldozed early last year. Human rights group Adhoc said at ...

A Stung Treng province district official on Sunday contradicted claims that logging in the area designated for the Sesan 2 dam had ceased a month ago, saying that it had only stopped last week after direct orders from the government to do so. On Thursday, Ministry ...

The documentary “Even A Bird Needs a Nest,” which premiered Thursday night at Meta House in Phnom Penh, starts off strong: an interview of Prime Minister Hun Sen speaking about the country’s progress and development. “The period of Hun Sen is a period of searching for ...

Boeung Kak Lake residents say they’ve been given another hollow promise after Phnom Penh’s governor failed to start measuring property for land titles on Wednesday. On Monday, Governor Pa Socheatvong met with 76 Boeung Kak Lake families and, according to those in attendance, promised that land ...

More than 55,000 people have joined an online petition set up by a pair of French nongovernment groups urging the European Union (E.U.) to immediately launch an investigation into local sugar plantations accused of illegally evicting hundreds of Cambodian families. At the center of the dispute ...

Phnom Penh Municipality will provide land titles to 33 more families living in the city’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, a municipal official said Tuesday, roughly a third of those still seeking property rights in the area that has seen some 3,000 forced evictions. “First, we will solve ...

Three ethnic minority communities in Mondolkiri province’s Pech Chreada district are drafting a petition to send to provincial authorities in an attempt to resolve a land dispute in which part of their communal land has been granted to other communities and private landowners. In June, officials ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has dismissed two complaints submitted by two local human rights groups, Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), against local officials who they alleged had de­famed and intimidated their staff, court officials said Friday. Adhoc filed a complaint against Pheng ...

Accelerating the mapping and titling of rural farmland should be an “urgent” priority of the government and civil society, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, Oxfam representatives said yesterday. The remarks followed the release of an EU-funded survey of rural communities’ ...

Activists are skeptical that Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen will follow through on a pledge to stop a contentious practice of appropriating rural land for commercial use, an issue that hurt the leader and his party in elections in July. In its new five-year political platform ...

Apsara Authority officials on Tuesday began moving to their new offices far outside of Siem Reap onto land within the Angkor Archaeological Park as part of a swap with the city’s provincial government, officials said. The move comes after Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered Siem Reap’s ...

Siem Reap’s provincial government apparatus, which in 2010 was relocated to a remote site 16 km outside of the city as part of an extensive and hugely controversial swap of government land and buildings, is moving back to its old home in the tourist city’s ...

Sok Ren’s eyes dart from side to side as he explains in a hushed tone why he’s been detained at military barracks in Preah Vihear province, rarely allowed to leave and under near constant surveillance, since July 31. While casting his ballot for the Cambodian People’s ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday questioned two businessmen over allegations of fraud and using forged public documents, including claims they faked a signature from Prime Minister Hun Sen in a mining transaction, court and police officials said. Deputy prosecutor Var Sakada said Cambodian Al ...