Public land lease

Looking out from his house, held up by three-meter stilts on a peninsula that juts into Boeng Tompun lake, Chan Sokhom can see the sand inching closer to him every day. Within a few years, the sand will likely reach his doorstep. By then, Mr. Sokhom ...

A Singapore-based firm whose subsidiary plans to buy land in Phnom Penh from which thousands of families have been forcibly evicted said Wednesday that the firm had no knowledge of the long-running land dispute. The firm, HLH Group, also denied any official or financial ties to ...

About half the Koh Kong province villagers relocated to make way for a Union Development Group resort project have abandoned the new homes provided for them, citing poor conditions and an inconvenient location, a village representative said yesterday. More than 1,000 families living in the province’s ...

More than 100 families living in Ratanakkiri’s Lumphat district have filed a complaint with authorities, claiming a rubber giant – already accused of illegal logging – filled in two natural lakes, provincial officials said yesterday. Villagers, along with government officials, say Vietnamese company Hong Anh Gai ...

A development firm owned by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin and accused of illegally evicting thousands of families from central Phnom Penh recently sold a small piece of its project area for $14.9 million to a company with ties to one of Prime Minister Hun ...

Three separate communities from across the country were in Phnom Penh on Monday to petition Prime Minister Hun Sen to personally intervene to help settle their various land disputes. Communities affected by alleged land grabs in Phnom Penh and beyond often appeal directly to Mr. Hun ...

Hundreds of families descended on Phnom Penh yesterday to ask Prime Minister Hun Sen and the United Nations to intervene in three separate land disputes. More than 800 families from across the country gathered in front of Wat Botum at about 9am, where they submitted petitions ...

Developer Shukaku has sold off close to 1.3 hectares of land at the capital’s controversial Boeung Kak lake site to a Singapore-listed HLH Group company, according to a statement from HLH. HLH subsidiary D’Lotus Development purchased the land at Boeung Kak in Daun Penh district for ...

About 50 families gathered under a timber roof here Sunday among muddy fields granted to them as compensation after China’s Union Development Group (UDG) began to turn their coastal homeland into a $3.8-billion tourist mecca. The families, who now live in timber houses dotting the barren ...

Malaysia’s Mega First Corp Bhd says it increased spending on a controversial dam project in Laos and a new rubber project in Cambodia by 45 percent to MYR 50.4 million ($15.7 million) in 2013. Project development expenditure on the Don Sahong dam on the Cambodian border ...

The families of four people from Pailin province’s Krinh village who have been incarcerated since March for allegedly living on state land are calling for their release. Fifty-year-old Nheb Nharn said that he and his wife, Om Som Ath, had lived on the land in Stung ...

Chroy Changva district security guards Thursday stopped villagers from preventing a private company from pumping sand onto the wetlands behind their homes. The Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC) is building a $3-billion real estate project, known as “Chroy Changva City, City of the Future,” on the ...

Mixed security forces led by Kratie province’s court prosecutor yesterday arrested six people in a huge illegal logging bust, confiscating more than 100 cubic metres of protected luxury-grade timber. ...

Mixed security forces led by Kratie province’s court prosecutor yesterday arrested six people in a huge illegal logging bust, confiscating more than 100 cubic metres of protected luxury-grade timber. The arrests of both Cambodian and Vietnamese nationals were the culmination of a three-day crackdown by prosecutor ...

A private clinic aiming to provide medical care to factory workers in the Phnom Penh Special Economic Zone (SEZ) will open this month, the health centre’s managing director said yesterday. ...

The Ministry of Environment broke ground Monday on its new location on a piece of land near Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich island after the environment minister called off a land swap that had been shrouded in secrecy. About 200 officials attended the ceremony in Chaktomuk commune, ...

Representatives for the 200 Cambodian families suing U.K. sugar firm Tate & Lyle for allegedly profiting off of their stolen land say they have rejected the firm’s latest offer to settle the dispute and are looking forward to their first court date, set for October. The ...

Twelve families locked in a land dispute in Kampot province blocked a construction company on Wednesday from dumping earth onto fields they maintain are theirs, villagers and a rights worker said Thursday. The villagers say the company began encroaching on their land in 2011, when they ...

Hundreds of families from Kratie province’s Snuol district who were promised new plots of land after a Vietnamese rubber firm evicted them last month have complained that provincial officials are allowing hundreds of interlopers to stake a claim instead. The 405 families were evicted from the ...

Housing rights activist Yorm Bopha, who spent nearly a year in jail for leading demonstrations, will receive a reward and recognition for her work. The James Lawson Award, named for an American activist and given for nonviolent achievements, will grant her $6,000 in Boston later ...

Indigenous villagers in Mondolkiri province say relevant authorities that are supposed to crack down on forestry crimes instead collude with logging companies and powerful businessmen, allowing them cut down trees. That has put their forest tribal traditions and livelihoods, which are dependent on forests, in ...

About 60 villagers in Kompong Chhnang province’s Kompong Tralach district blocked two heavy tractors sent to clear a boundary Monday on disputed land they maintain was illegally grabbed by a company owned by the wife of Mines Minister Suy Sem. KDC International, which is owned by ...

Villagers who claim a development project in Russey Keo district has already taken a bite out of their land said yesterday that they fear the plan will swallow the rest of their property, as they filed petitions and met with local authorities. Members of 80 families ...

Prey Lang is one of Cambodia’s few remaining large forests, covering approximately 3,600 square kilometers across four northern provinces. The forest is home to about 200,000 mostly indigenous people, who depend on it for their livelihoods, according to the Prey Lang Community Network. But, the ...