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 received a collective land title for 1,425 hectares of land inside the protected forest area, according to Ngam Pheng, deputy director of Mondolkiri’s provincial land management department. “Five hundred indigenous families will benefit from this collective land title...which is important for the protection of indigenous rights and ensures indigenous people are treated equally under the land law,” Mr. Pheng said. …