Land

Opposition lawmakers say they have seen evidence of toxic chemicals being used on rural land near Cambodia’s frontier with Vietnam, amid claims by local villagers the attacks were facilitated by Vietnamese authorities as part of an ongoing border dispute. ...

After five months in jail, a woman whose family is embroiled in a bitter land dispute with tycoon Khun Sear was released on bail from Prey Sar prison on Friday, though the fight between the two parties remains unresolved. ...

Despite an order from the Supreme Court, officials at Prey Sar prison Thursday refused to release a woman on bail who has been jailed since November as part of a bitter land dispute with tycoon Khun Sear, her lawyer said. ...

Representatives of 29 families involved in a land dispute with the Defense Ministry in Phnom Penh visited the National Assembly on Thursday, seeking a response to a petition they submitted last month asking for intervention. ...

In this sparsely populated area along the eastern fringe of Bokor National Park in Chhuk district, villagers are scrambling to claim sandy, arid land as an international company surges ahead with its palm oil plantation. As in many of the hundreds of unresolved land disputes playing ...

The Ministry of Mines and Energy will hold an auction next month putting up for sale four licenses to dredge sand along a stretch of the Mekong River, according to a statement posted to the ministry’s website on Tuesday. ...

Four Cambodian migrant workers who were arrested earlier this month for allegedly trying to re-enter Cambodia with fake documents were exonerated by a Thai court and released yesterday, Banteay Meanchey Deputy Governor Um Reatrey has said. ...

Members of a forest community and local officials in Preah Vihear province have renewed a legal battle over a small patch of woodland in Rovieng district after the villagers last year accused the officials and a landowner of illegally profiting from the protected area. ...

The Cambodian government earned about $80 million leasing economic land concessions and forests to private companies over the last three years, according to a report from the Ministry of Economy and Finance released last week. The January report, signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen, found that ...

Security guards armed with axes, clubs and hammers have reportedly threatened villagers with eviction at the Union Development Group (UDG) site in Koh Kong province just weeks after the Chinese company pledged to peacefully resolve the dispute. About 50 security officials arrived at the villagers’ homes ...

Villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district last week seized several logs of illegal timber, ending what they said had been a lull in illegal logging since the arrests of two officials accused of colluding with loggers. ...

Just two days after Prime Minister Hun Sen promised to resolve a 20-year-old land dispute in Siem Reap City, the government on Friday issued a subdecree that divides 115 hectares of the contested plot between more than 700 families. ...

An environmental activist and a fisherman said Sunday that about 70 residents of Koh Kong province had worked together over the past few days to chase away sand-dredging barges they accused of operating illegally around Koh Kapi island and damaging vital fishing grounds. ...

Officials charged with protecting Cambodia’s Samkos Wildlife Sanctuary are colluding with loggers responsible for felling at least 300 trees each day, according to activists in the area. ...

At least 16 more families that have been locked in a bitter and lengthy dispute with the municipal government over land in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood accepted municipal governor Pa Socheatvong’s offer of a land swap Thursday morning. ...

Armed guards evicted residents from their homes from a village in Cambodia’s Kratie province on Thursday as rival villagers burned their houses down when local authorities tried to hand over their land to the first group, local witnesses said. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday told provincial governors to take responsibility for curbing forestry crimes in their respective provinces and scolded officials who blame one another when illegal logging is uncovered. ...

A government official rejected calls from a pair of NGOs on Tuesday to do more for Phnom Penh’s slums amid what they described as an opaque land-titling system that has routinely failed poor communities. In a joint report, “The Exclusion of Urban Poor Communities From Systematic ...

Cambodia’s land-titling review process lacks transparency and clarity and is in danger of leaving behind Phnom Penh’s urban poor, according to a new report. Since the Systematic Land Registration (SLR) program was established in 2002, the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction has granted ...

According to a new survey, land disputes in Cambodia lead to employment insecurity, causing poverty, food insecurity, and increasing physical and psychological insecurity. The survey found that most expressed a desire for the government to eliminate land disputes and set a clear policy to address ...

Both the number of accidents and casualties caused by old landmines and other unexploded ordnance (UXO) rose by nearly 40 percent last year, according to the latest government data, though the two figures were still the second lowest on record following years of progress in ...

Cambodia’s foremost logging baron exported more than 100,000 cubic metres of timber from Sihanoukville Port last year, likely including a species protected by an international treaty to which the Kingdom is a signatory, an analysis by Global Witness of leaked export records suggests. The data, obtained ...

A network of about 400 activists completed a five-day patrol of the unprotected 650,000-hectare Prey Long forest in the country’s north Sunday, seizing and burning illegally logged wood and confiscating chainsaws from those they discovered felling trees. ...

Four ethnic Jarai village representatives in Ratanakkiri province, including the wife of a rights group activist, were ordered to appear at court today or face arrest on charges of defamation against Keat Kolney, the sister of Deputy Prime Minister Keat Chhon. The case is part of ...