Land
Feature: Slum dwellers in Cambodian capital want to benefit from development
Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital and largest city, has seen rapid development in the last decade — numerous high-rises, large shopping malls and business centres as well as public parks are beautifying this city — in the meantime, slum-dwellers are also on the rise. According to the ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-08/18/c_132641165.htm
Ecosystems in the Greater Mekong: past trends, current status, possible futures
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS: Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, and Yunnan and Guangxi in China) is undergoing unprecedented changes. Many of these are positive, reflecting political stabilization and economic growth following decades of poverty and conflict. But the rate and type of development is ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=ZjY4MTUzZGZkNmQ
Sri Lankan company to plant 20,000 hectares of rubber in Cambodia
Sri Lankan agricultural group Lankem Ceylon PLC says it plans to plant 20,000 hectares of rubber in Cambodia as part of a diversification strategy. Lankem chairman A Rajaratnam disclosed the strategy in the company’s annual report for the year to March, 2012, released by the company ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=OGEzOGYyMjJhYTI
Opposition Voters in Preah Vihear Claim Threat of Eviction
Locals and rights groups on Wednesday said dozens of farmers in a village in Preah Vihear province have been singled out for eviction after supporting the opposition CNRP in last month’s vote, a claim their village chief denied. Residents of Choam Ksan district’s Kom Prak village ...
Anti-tank mine explodes, killing 6 in Cambodia
Six farmers were killed on the spot and another one seriously injured after a home-made tractor ran onto an old anti-tank mine in northwestern Preah Vihear province, police chief confirmed Thursday. The accident occurred in a forest in Chom-ksan district when the tractor hit the mine ...
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-08/15/c_132632791.htm
Villagers in a drawn-out land fight summonsed
Five Tumpuon villagers have again been summonsed for questioning by the Ratanakkiri Provincial Court in a lengthy dispute after private firm Ly Sokim Co Ltd accused villagers of destroying its property. In the latest summons, dated July 30, villagers are warned that failing to show up ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/villagers-drawn-out-land-fight-summonsed
After vote, land issues heat up
The Cambodian Center for Human Rights yesterday expressed concern at a recent spate of land disputes coming on the heels of last month’s vote, and questioned whether campaign promises of resolving the Kingdom’s ongoing land issues had been forgotten now that the election has passed. The ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/after-vote-land-issues-heat
Villagers Concerned Over Impact of Gold Mine
More than 700 families living in Stung Treng province’s Siem Pang district have appealed to local authorities, demanding that they intervene to stop a Chinese company mining gold near their homes. Sin Dan, chief of Thma Keo commune, said he had delivered the petition to both ...
Couple say illegal wood is not theirs
Police seized about 600 pieces of luxury-grade rosewood weighing about 2,000 kilograms during a raid in Oddar Meanchey province on Sunday, but are still deciding whether to arrest the owners of the property on which it was found, an official said. Bun Heng, a communal forestry ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/couple-say-illegal-wood-not-theirs
Red Cross Gives Aid to Borei Keila Families
Phnom Penh municipality and the Cambodian Red Cross (CRC) on Sunday donated money and food rations to 176 families from Borei Keila—where thousands of people have been violently evicted from their homes in recent years after the land was sold to a private company. Phnom Penh ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/red-cross-gives-aid-to-borei-keila-families-39096/
Scant proof found of illegal logging: official
Following an investigation of alleged illegal logging by Vietnamese Company 72 in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district forests yesterday morning, provincial Forestry Administration officials claimed nothing seemed awry. Four villagers patrolling the forest at the border of Vietnam reported they had seen six Vietnamese loggers with two tractors, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/scant-proof-found-illegal-logging-official
Jarai battle for communal titles takes important step
Their work is far from over, but Jarai minority villagers in Ratanakkiri province took another important step forward yesterday in their quest for communal land titles. More than 200 residents of O’Yadav district’s Pate commune signed declarations outlining the ways in which they make use of ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/jarai-battle-communal-titles-takes-important-step
Thousands expected to visit Kep sea festival
At least 20,000 tourists and travellers will participate in the so-called “sea festival” at the end of this year, officials at the Kep province tourism department said. The two-day event, which started in 2011 as a tourism booster for the country’s coasts and beaches, was cancelled ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/thousands-expected-visit-kep-sea-festival
Bulldozers will not move us, families insist
More than 100 families living in Koh Kong’s Kiri Sakor and Botum Sakor districts are on the clock, with an official government decree demanding they vacate their land in less than two months or face the bulldozers of the Chinese firm slated to build a ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bulldozers-will-not-move-us-families-insist
Vietnamese firm is still logging illegally: Adhoc
Employees reportedly working for the controversial Company 72 have allegedly been illegally felling timber in a community forest in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadav district and shipping it across the Vietnamese border, community members and Adhoc said yesterday. Romas Svat, a community representative in Paknhai commune’s Lom village, ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/vietnamese-firm-still-logging-illegally-adhoc
Rainsy Says Those Behind Boeng Kak Deserve Jail
Opposition leader Sam Rainsy on Monday vowed to return Phnom Penh’s beleaguered Boeng Kak neighborhood to its residents and to have those who filled the lake with sand thrown in jail, should the opposition CNRP ultimately prevail in contesting the unofficial results of last month’s ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/elections/rainsy-says-those-behind-boeng-kak-deserve-jail-38399/
Land prices in Phnom Penh increase by 15 per cent in first quarter
The more Cambodia’s economy grows and the more investors come into Cambodia has had some positive and negative effects, and one of those effects is to push up land prices in Phnom Penh for the first quarter in 2013, an increase of 15 per cent. Sorn ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/real-estate/land-prices-phnom-penh-increase-15-cent-first-quarter
Some Return After Eviction From Coastal Resort Development
Thousands of people have been evicted from their homes to make way for a Chinese development in Koh Kong province. But some of the families have returned to their land, leaving a relocation site they say was insufficient for their needs. For families like those of ...
On Coast, Chinese Development Pushes Thousands From Land
Thousands of villagers in a remote district of the coastal province of Koh Kong have been evicted or are facing eviction in the face of a Chinese resort development project. Some families have moved unwillingly to relocation sites. But others are refusing to leave, setting the ...
UK Sugar Firm Investigating Child Labor Claims
U.K. sugar firm Tate & Lyle on Wednesday said it was looking into recent allegations of child labor on two plantations in Koh Kong province it has been buying sugar from since 2010, but rebuked NGOs for not bringing the claims to its attention sooner. The ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/uk-sugar-firm-investigating-child-labor-claims-36637/
Voters split in Boeung Kak
The battle for Phnom Penh at Sunday’s national election will be fought out with the years-long Boeung Kak land dispute still unresolved, after the city’s governor announced yesterday a solution would be found only after the ballot, villagers said. Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong, who in ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/voters-split-boeung-kak
Bamboo crafts furnish an income
Prior to 2009, Kong Channa, a rice farmer from Svay Rieng province, would leave his wife and young child for months at a time in neighbouring provinces to supplement his income in the off season. This all changed, though, when he began working with the Cambodian ...
U.S. Ambassadors Fund to give grants for Cambodia preservation
The U.S. Embassy has just announced it will be awarding grants to two recipients for the 2013 U.S. Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation in Cambodia. The Archaeology and Development Foundation is the first recipient and will receive $47,000 to implements it’s proposal called the “Documentation of ...
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=13&token=ZjYxOGFmM2ExNDk
Astra Says Gold Exploration Project Still On
An Australia-based firm that announced a plan to explore for gold in Ratanakkiri province insisted Monday that its Cambodian venture is still on track, despite allegations made in an Australian newspaper that it has garnered investment based on false information. Astra Resources, which has companies incorporated ...
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/astra-says-gold-exploration-project-still-on-36194/