Study Finds Land Concessions of No Benefit

24 October 2012
The Cambodia Daily
Agricultural production / Agriculture and fishing / Crop products and commodities / Economic land concessions and plantations / Economy and commerce / Ethnic minorities and indigenous people / Human rights / Investment / Land / Public land lease / Social development
2012 Development Research Forum / Agriculture & Agri-business / agriculture operations / Development / ELCs / ethnic minority groups / Human Rights / Indigenous Communities / indigenous people / land / land acquisition / Land rights / local development / Mekong Institute of Cambodia / Men Prachvuthy

Government-issued economic land concessions are making the country’s indigenous communities in the northeast provinces worse off, according to a study by the Mekong Institute of Cambodia. Presented yesterday at the 2012 Development Research Forum in Phnom Penh, the study comes on top of mounting criticism of economic land concessions (ELCs), which are granted for industrial scale agriculture operations and can measure up to tens of thousands of hectares. … Of the villagers he [Men Prachvuthy, the Mekong Institute’s director and the author of the study titled Land Acquisition by Non-Local Actors and Consequences for Local Development] surveyed, just over half said they had lost land to an ELC. Of those, a third said they had lost more than 5 hectares and just 16 percent said they had received compensation. … Groups tracking ELCs also said the government had granted a record number of agro-industry concessions in 2011, and that they now cover some 2 million hectares, roughly 10 percent of the country’s entire land mass.