Spirit of the Forest

…Once a majority ethnic minority province where Tampoun, Jarai and Kreung speakers outnumbered the Khmer, Ratanakkiri is now one of the country’s fastest growing provinces where inhabitants of lowland provinces, particularly Kompong Cham, Svay Rieng and Prey Veng, are flocking in search of a better future. … In Lum village, one of the remaining forest patches that hugs the Vietnamese border in Panknhai commune, the Jarai residents watched as cleared land crept ever closer. …In a matter of days the machines had begun to flatten the forest in the Komar River valley several kilometers from the center of Lum village, Mr. H’vinh [one of the residents] said. … Standing in the tree-lined shade on the edge of the flattened forest, Mr. H’vinh told of how the machines has pulled back and the clear cutting had ceased since the villagers protested, though the company’s workers had filed police complaints alleging that they had been intimidated by the locals. For their part, the Lum villagers lodged their own protests with commune, district and provincial official, demanding to know how their ancestral land had now wound up the property of a private company-whose name they did not even officially know. … Paknhai commune chief Rocham H’lech confirmed that the bulldozers of the concession company came without giving any notice to the local authorities. The bulldozing only stopped after the protest by Lum villagers, and that provincial authorities have now decided to measure how much of Lum villagers’ farmland falls within the already-granted concession. …