Land
Borei Keila suit filed
Seven people from the capital’s Borei Keila community allegedly injured by baton-wielding security forces last month, a pregnant woman among them, filed a lawsuit against Prampi Makara district authorities yesterday. The seven were among a group of dozens of families violently removed from a building on ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/borei-keila-suit-filed
Laos promises transparency over Don Sahong dam
More than 100 representatives of Mekong River Commission (MRC) member countries, development partners, international NGOs, and Lao and foreign media yesterday visited the site of the planned Don Sahong hydropower project. The two-day site visit provided an opportunity for participants to learn from experts how fish ...
The Cambodia herald news Staff
http://www.thecambodiaherald.com/cambodia/detail/1?page=15&token=YWU3ZjgwNzk1MWI
Family’s world shrinks daily
Dozens of trucks, bulldozers and excavators have pushed Var Sokhoeurn to the edge of his remaining land at the Lower Sesan II dam site in Stung Treng province’s Srepok district. When Post reporters visited Sokhoeurn’s family last month, much of his land, where he grew cassava and other ...
Phak Seangly and Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/family%E2%80%99s-world-shrinks-daily
Vietnamese charged with illegal logging
The Mondolkiri Provincial Court on Tuesday charged 15 Vietnamese nationals with illegally crossing the border and logging protected forest, four days after the group was detained by members of the ethnic Bunong minority in a community forest 20 km from the border. Ya Narin, director of ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/vietnamese-charged-with-illegal-logging-53975/
Kuoy villagers block firms
Some 200 ethnic Kuoy minority villagers in Preah Vihear’s Chheb district blocked tractors belonging to a Chinese company from bulldozing their rice crops yesterday, the same day that district authorities received a letter from the Interior Ministry instructing them to broker an agreement between villagers ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/kuoy-villagers-block-firms
Government-formed land dispute committee suspected of bias
The Kompong Chhnang provincial government has set up a new committee to help settle a long-running land dispute between local farmers and a company owned by the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem, but a representative of the villagers has not been invited ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/government-formed-land-dispute-committee-suspected-of-bias-53851/
Sand rises as villagers wait
Thirteen families in Phnom Penh’s O’andoung village, who have been locked in a long-running dispute with tycoon Sok Kong’s Sokimex company, say their land is being flooded with sand as they wait for a response to a complaint filed with Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/sand-rises-villagers-wait
Villagers charged with illegally clearing land
The Kratie Provincial Court on Sunday charged three villagers with illegally clearing community forest, and six more for clearing state-owned land, officials said Monday. The three people were arrested in Snoul district’s Khyoem commune and accused of clearing protected forest while the other six were arrested ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-charged-with-illegally-clearing-land-53859/
A refined approach?
Hundreds of trucks hauling sugarcane queue up along the dusty roads that cut a path through a plantation in Kampong Speu province. Their destination: Cambodia’s most advanced sugar refinery. Its owners say the landmark project, run by the Phnom Penh Sugar Company and its president, ruling ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/refined-approach
Locals seeking justice after ‘broken deal’
Villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district are demanding their land back, claiming buyers from a local company failed to uphold a 2007 deal. The 66 ethnic Kreung families filed a complaint on Friday after workers from a nearby rubber plantation started to slash and burn the 400 ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/locals-seeking-justice-after-%E2%80%98broken-deal%E2%80%99
Families in Boeng Kak asked to give up land for titles
Families still waiting for promised land titles in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood said Sunday that the municipal government is offering to give them their long-awaited tenure rights only if they agree to give up part of their land. About 100 Boeng Kak families were left ...
Zsombor Peter and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/families-in-boeng-kak-asked-to-give-up-land-for-titles-53749/
WWF unveils bid to help Mondulkiri forests
In the latest bid to protect Mondulkiri’s ravaged forests, World Wildlife Fund is rolling out a new project designed to give locals financial incentives to help preserve Mondulkiri Protected Forest and Phnom Prich Wildlife Sanctuary. Cultivating small-scale, community-run businesses such as resin tree tapping and beekeeping ...
Amelia Woodside
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/wwf-unveils-bid-help-mondulkiri-forests
Villagers detain suspected illegal loggers
A team of ethnic minority Banong villagers in Mondolkiri province detained a group of Vietnamese men on Saturday, who they suspect of illegally logging inside their community forest, and have handed them over to local police. Khut Chanra said he was among about 60 fellow Banong ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/villagers-detain-suspected-illegal-loggers-53756/
NGOs say selling off old land concessions is premature
The government’s announcement on Wednesday that companies looking to start rubber plantations could skirt a moratorium on new economic land concessions (ELCs) by taking over existing, dormant ones continued to make a good impression on prospective investors in town Thursday. Ly Phalla, who heads the Agriculture ...
Zsombor Peter
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/archives/ngos-say-selling-off-old-land-concessions-is-premature-53677/
City Hall wants World Bank, NGOs to compensate evicted families
Representatives of some of the 3,000 families evicted from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood in recent years said Thursday that municipal government officials, who were ultimately responsible for the mass evictions, told them they would be inviting the World Bank and NGOs to help compensate ...
Borei Keila firm told to pay $2.7 million
Suy Sophan, the owner of development firm Phan Imex, has been ordered to repay $2.7 million to a Korean company over an uncompleted sale of land at Borei Keila, from where hundreds have been violently evicted, a court document reveals. In a decision handed down in ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/borei-keila-firm-told-pay-27-million
Dam developers hit back
Hydropower developers in southern Laos have fired back at the World Wildlife Fund after the conservation group issued two disparaging reports in as many weeks on the Don Sahong dam project. WWF released a brief on February 19 alleging that construction of the 260-megawatt damcould result ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/dam-developers-hit-back
Solar power for communes
The offices of commune officials along the Tonle Sap basin will soon be solar-powered as part of a poverty-reduction project backed by the Asian Development Bank. Some 123 off-the-grid commune council offices in Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Kampong Thom and Kampong Cham provinces will be fitted ...
Daniel de Carteret
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/solar-power-communes
New owners, old story
An existing moratorium on economic land concessions should be no impediment to pouring more cash into the Kingdom’s booming, and highly criticised, rubber trade, industry executives in the capital heard yesterday, as many current ELCs can simply be recycled to a new crop of investors. Ly ...
Daniel Pye
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/new-owners-old-story
Boeung Kak protester trio detained, released
In yet another case of district security guards assuming the role of police officers, three evictees of the capital’s Boeung Kak lake area were detained in the capital yesterday morning and taken to a police station. Daun Penh district security guards seized Em Srey Touch, 41, ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/boeung-kak-protester-trio-detained-released
Thailand shuts 6 checkpoints in Banteay Meanchey
Six border checkpoints in Banteay Meanchey province were on Saturday closed unilaterally and without warning by Thailand, local officials and border police said. Lieutenant Colonel So Channry, chief of the 911 border battalion in O’Chrov district, said that Thai authorities had closed the checkpoints, one of ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/thailand-shuts-6-checkpoints-in-banteay-meanchey-53537/
Palm oil plantation accused of withholding workers’ pay
More than 20 families working on a controversial palm oil plantation in Ratanakkiri province owned by the Hoang Anh Lumphat company have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc accusing the owners of improperly withholding one month’s pay. Lor Sophal said he and another 22 families, ...
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/palm-oil-plantation-accused-of-withholding-workers-pay-53520/
Development pushes poor from land as Cambodia dams its rivers
“From my view, I don’t want to have it, but it is development, we can’t stop them,” says Srekor’s village chief, Leang Saroeurn. Cambodia’s impressive yearly GDP growth rates of 7 percent for the last decade have come, in part, through a ravenous consumption of the countries ...
Daniel Quinlan
http://asiancorrespondent.com/120212/development-drives-displacement-as-cambodia-dams-its-rivers/
Group of B Kak villagers get long-awaited land titles
Years of fighting for their land came to an end for 17 families at Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak community yesterday when City Hall delivered them long-awaited land titles. The handover was part of a vow to resolve the capital’s main land disputes made by Phnom Penh ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/group-b-kak-villagers-get-long-awaited-land-titles