ដីធ្លី
Villagers Seize Large Hauls of Illegal Timber
Hundreds of villagers patrolling Prey Long forest for illegal logging discovered and burned more than 370 cubic meters of wood during the first four days of their campaign, an organizer said yesterday. About 400 villagers from Kompong Thom, Kratie, Stung Treng and Preah Vihear provinces who ...
Villagers Protest Gov’t Plans To Turn Farmland Into SEZ
About 50 people protested in front of Pailin Provincial Hall yesterday against a government plan to turn their farmland in Sala Krao district into a special economic zone (SEZ), villagers and officials said. “It is the villagers that abuse the government land. They took the ...
Police to ‘monitor’ activists
Kampong Thom province Police and soldiers have been deployed to Prey Lang forest to monitor the activities of about 500 villagers patrolling for illegal loggers, a police official said yesterday. The police and military officers gathered along a road leading to the CRCK rubber company, which has ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032755262/National-news/police-to-monitor-activists.html
Authorities nab loggers at border
Cambodia border police arrested 12 people last week who attempted to cross illegally from Preah Vihear province into Thailand to log rosewood, officials said yesterday. .. ...
Blind eye to forest's plight
Rangers paid by an internationally funded conservation organisation have been directly profiting for years from the very trade they are supposed to be preventing in southwest Cambodia, documents obtained by the Post allege. Former Conservation International (CI) staff members say when they spoke up about endemic ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032655247/National-news/blind-eye-to-forests-plight.html
One Killed and One Injured While Logging Across Borders
One man was killed and one injured in two separate shooting incidents that took place last week at the borders with Thailand and Laos, officials said yesterday. In both cases, the Cambodians are believed to have been shot while illegally logging highly coveted luxury rosewood in ...
Prey Lang villagers on patrol
Kampong Thom province About 500 frustrated villagers, citing the authorities’ inaction as their motivation, rode some 250 motorbikes into Prey Lang forest over the weekend in yet another effort to combat illegal logging they say is decimating the area. The villagers from four provinces surrounding Prey Lang ...
Laos logging incident sees man shot, injured
A Cambodian man was injured last week after Lao authorities shot him while he was illegally logging rosewood in Laos’ Champasak district, near Stung Treng province, authorities said yesterday. Siem Pang district police chief Var Sophan told the Post yesterday that 27-year-old Sarin Da was accompanied ...
Drugs: our man in Cambodia
The inquiry that targeted Hun To, dubbed Operation Illipango, investigated the shipment of heroin into Australia from Cambodia in loads of timber. Hun To, a nephew of Prime Minister Hun Sen, is a powerful and feared figure in Cambodia. He was once considered a close business ...
http://www.theage.com.au/national/investigations/drugs-our-man-in-cambodia-20120325-1vsiz.html
Violence in Land Disputes Up, Rights Group Says
A total of 36 protests involving economic land concessions ended with violent intervention from armed authorities last year, according to data released this week by local rights group Adhoc. More than a fifth of the cases involved the long-simmering Boeng Kak lake evictions, in which ...
The great land giveaway
More than 2 million of the Kingdom’s nearly 18 million hectares of land – roughly 12 per cent – was given out to 225 private companies in economic concessions last year, according to an annual report released by rights group Adhoc yesterday. The concessions put 606 ...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012032355211/National-news/the-great-land-giveaway.html
60,000 Evicted in 2011 Alone; Majority From Phnom Penh
Nearly 60,000 people were forcibly evicted from their homes last year alone, often being moved to inadequate relocation sites where they face unemployment and rising debt levels, according to a report by rights group Adhoc released yesterday. A total of 59,904 people from 127 communities were ...
Cambodia Surges Full-Speed Ahead With Land Concessions
The government has already granted roughly 300,000 hectares in economic land concessions (ELC) so far this year, according to data released by a local rights group yesterday. The figure, which amounts to 40 percent of the total land concessions granted in all of 2011, has ...
Boeng Kak Protesters Burn Effigies of ‘Bad Officials’
About 100 residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community took to the streets yesterday dragging straw and cloth effigies representing local officials who are attempting to evict them. ...
Mondolkiri Minority Group Granted Communal Land Title
Residents of an ethnic minority village in Mondolkiri’s Seima Protected Forest on Monday became the first community in the province to receive a communal land title, land management officials said yesterday. About 500 indigenous Bunong families from Andoung Kraloeng village in O’Reang district’s Sen Monorom commune ...
Hundreds of Villagers Block Road to Protest Land Clearing
About 400 villagers in Kratie province’s Snuol district blocked national road 76A for three hours yesterday to demand that authorities release a villager who had been arrested earlier in the day for allegedly inciting villagers embroiled in a land dispute, villagers and a district official ...
Fight Illegal Logging From Top, World Bank Says
Echoing longstanding calls from conservation groups, the World Bank says in a new report today that governments need to look past low-level criminals to tackle illegal logging and to follow the money the illicit trade generates instead. That trade of illegal logging generates up to $15 ...
Laos Sets Free Seven Cambodians; 16 Waiting
Laos yesterday released seven of 23 Cambodians who have been apprehended across the border since the start of the year on suspicions of illegal logging, according to a military and district official. ...
Trial of Minister’s Wife Opens Without Plaintiffs
Opening statements started yesterday in a trial pitting Kompong Chhnang province villagers against the wife of Minister of Industry Suy Sem over a long-standing land dispute. However, the plaintiffs and human rights workers monitoring the trial criticized yesterday’s proceedings, which were allowed to proceed despite ...
23,000 Hectares of Land Concessions Approved
The government last month granted four companies a total 23,000 hectares of land concessions for agro-industry projects and a special economic zone (SEZ), according to human rights groups, which said it obtained the information from government documents. An additional 500 hectares inside a wildlife sanctuary were ...
Officials Seize 100 Cubic Meters of Luxury Wood
Forestry officials in Ratanakkiri province, along with provincial officials, have carried out several operations in three districts this month that netted about 100 cubic meters of various types of luxury wood, but no suspects were arrested, officials said yesterday. ...
Court Sets Date for Questioning Bavet Victims
Svay Rieng Provincial Prosecutor Hing Bunchea said yesterday that he had summoned two of the three women shot at a Bavet City special economic zone (SEZ) for questioning next week, and denied accusations that investigators were dragging their feet on the case. Rights groups continued to ...
Officials Again Seize Timber In Kratie Without Any Arrests
For the second time in a month, Forestry Administration officials in Kratie province’s Snuol district have found hundreds of cubic meters of first-grade wood that had been smuggled to a site near the tributary of the Prek Pao river, officials said yesterday. As in previous wood ...
Villagers to police logging in Prey Lang
More than 600 villagers from four provinces and civil society organisation officials would embark on the largest community crackdown yet on the “anarchic logging” of Prey Lang forest in Kampong Thom, representatives said yesterday. ...