Arrests Threatened In Ratanakkiri
May 15th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Farmland, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas
Provincial authorities in Ratanakkiri have warned ethnic Jarai villagers that they will be arrested if they continue to stop bulldozers belonging to a Vietnamese company from clearing forest in O’Yadav district’s Paknhai commune, community leaders said yesterday.
Sav Finh, leader of Lom village’s forestry protection committee, said provincial and forestry administration officials visited the cleared area late last week to warn villagers not to take direct action against the company again. …
O’Yadav district governor Dork Sar said the forest belonged to the state and that, if the company had been granted the land, the villagers had no right to stop the company’s activities. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051565625/National/arrests-threatened-in-ratanakkiri.html
Villagers Make Heady Claims Against NGO
May 10th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas
Families living in Koh Kong province have called on the provincial governor to intervene in what they claim are ongoing land disputes with Forestry Administration authorities and conservation NGO Wildlife Alliance.
Thirty-eight families from Mondul Seima and Khemarak Pumin districts have 110 hectares of land between them that authorities are refusing to allow student volunteers to measure, community representative In Chhron of Bak Khlang’s Cham Yeam village, said yesterday. …
May Titthara and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013051065550/National/villagers-make-heady-claims-against-ngo.html
Old Soldiers Won’t Fade Away
May 7th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Farmland, Labor, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Social Land Concessions
“I don’t know how to protect the territorial integrity [of the nearby Cambodian-Thai border] – even my three hectares of land I cannot protect,” said Bun Chanthorn, 54, one of hundreds of retired and active soldiers who since 2010 have been battling the local authorities and a rubber company over thousands of hectares of land in Pursat’s Veal Veng district. …
“When the country has a war, they need us, but when it is peaceful, they threaten to seize our land without considering our seniority, without considering how we sacrificed our lives for the nation,” he said.
Though Chanthorn has long farmed this land, he has been barred from continuing to do so in the past year by Oknha Try Pheap’s MDS Import-Export Co, Ltd, which was granted a 4,373-hectare concession in the area in December 2010. The new commune chief, said Chanthorn, refused to accept a receipt of ownership issued by his predecessor on the pretext that the area lay inside a conservation zone.
When volunteer students came to the area starting last June, they measured the company’s land, avoiding the villagers, locals told the Post. …
Khoy Sokha, Pursat provincial governor, insisted that the government was working on a solution to the dispute. …
“If they are really soldiers’ families, they will get their social land concession. I will find it for them,” he said. …
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050765451/National/old-soldiers-won-t-fade-away.html
RCAF Denies Clearing Carbon-Trade Forest
May 3rd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, International Relations, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
A Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RACF) official in Oddar Meanchey province said he would be happy to meet with community forestry members who say that new military bases are threatening their plans to sell millions of dollars worth of carbon credits to foreign companies in return for protecting the environment. …
Yesterday, Major General San Sear, deputy commander of intervention infantry for RCAF’s Division II, which oversees the area … denied the widespread forest clearance that members of the forestry network have accused the military of. …
“Our soldiers do not cut down the trees inside the protected forests because we also need the trees to give us shade,” he said. “There are no RCAF soldiers who have engaged in logging and deforestation.”
Maj. Gen. Sear said orders from the highest levels of government had been given to set up bases in the protected forest zone, which runs along Cambodia’s contentious border with Thailand.
Mr. [Sar] Thlai [head of the community forest network area], said locals found out about yet another military base in another forest when a group of soldiers forced a community patrol team to give up a cache of wood and chainsaws it had recently seized from illegal loggers.
At a meeting with local military officials about a year ago, the military said it was taking over 2,500 hectares in two of those forests, Mr. Thlai said. …
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rcaf-denies-clearing-carbon-trade-forest-21777/
Pushing the ELC envelope
May 3rd, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Foreign Investment, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
Three companies accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province are in possession of a combined 30,000 hectares of economic land concessions (ELCs) that are likely illegal because they are owned by the same parent firm.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas, Hoang Anh Lumphat and Hoang Anh Ouyadav are all subsidiaries of HAGL, according to the company’s 2012 annual report.
Hoang Anh Andong Meas and Hoang Anh Lumphat’s concessions lie inside the Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary, which rights groups have said is being decimated by illegal loggers who then bring the wood onto company land.
Very similarly named companies – including one called Hoang An Andong Meas, which has a 9,775-hectare concession inside Virachey National Park – operate elsewhere in the province.
Article 59 of the Land Law stipulates individuals or legal entities controlled by the same person cannot hold more than 10,000 hectares of ELCs, even if it is spread over multiple concessions. …
Phak Seangly and Shane Warrel
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050365405/National/pushing-the-elc-envelope.html
Mekong forest facing sharp decline: WWF
May 3rd, 2013, Channel News Asia, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Economics, Energy, Environment & Natural Resources, Farming, Fishing, Forests, Hydroelectricity, Lakes/Rivers, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
BANGKOK: Demand for farmland may strip the Greater Mekong region of a third of its remaining forest cover over the next two decades without swift government action, a leading conservation group warned Thursday.
Forests are being cleared for commodities such as rubber and rice while illegal logging is decimating many protected zones, WWF said in a report, adding a contentious dam on Mekong river will deepen already severe ecosystem damage.
“The Greater Mekong is at a crossroads,” said Peter Cutter of the WFF, adding Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar lost between 22-24 percent of their forests from 1973 — the first point of available data — to 2009, while 43 percent of woodland was stripped from Thailand and Vietnam. …
The US$3.8 billion hydroelectric project, which is due to be completed in around five years, has sharply divided the four Mekong nations — Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. …
AFP
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/mekong-forest-facing-sharp-decline-wwf/661574.html
Illegal Logging Threatens UN’s Carbon Trading Project
May 2nd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
The military’s ongoing clearing of community forests in Oddar Meanchey province risks derailing Cambodia’s first forest-based carbon trading scheme backed by the U.N., according to the latest assessment of the project.
Community forest groups, who stand to earn millions from the project, said on Wednesday that they have proposed a meeting with officials at the provincial government’s headquarters in Samraong City for Wednesday in order to discuss illegal logging in the area.
Members of the network of 13 community forests that make up the 68,000-hectare project area have been complaining about the illegal for years and more recently about a proliferation of military bases in the forests. …
With the potential risks down the line, and more projects from REDD- a U.N. sponsored initiative for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation- in the works around Cambodia, the outcome of the project in Oddar Meanchey could prove critical. …
As part of the REDD initiative, the project aims to convince western companies looking to offset their carbon emission to pay for the carbon the community forests will keep locked in the trees. The scheme only works, of course if the trees remain standing.
Sa Thlai, who heads the provinces community forest network, has been warning that military bases have been “destroying” the project for months, and that more than half of one of the 13 forests had already been felled. …
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/illegal-logging-threatens-uns-carbon-trading-project-21395/
Angry Villagers Confront Workers
May 1st, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Domestic Investment, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Farming, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
Jarai minority villagers in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district protested in two locations yesterday against a Vietnamese company that community leaders say has been clearing their protected land and forcing villagers to accept inadequate compensation.
Community leader Sev Hem said 30 angry villagers directly confronted five Company 72 workers and their bulldozers in Yatung commune’s Ten village yesterday. …
Villagers and local rights group Adhoc claim Company 72 had forced 10 families in Ten village to give their thumbprints to an agreement accepting $200 per hectare in compensation. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013050165347/National/angry-villagers-confront-workers.html
Forest Allegedly Cleared By Company
April 29th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Local authorities and Ratanakkiri provincial forestry officials yesterday visited an area in O’Yadav district where community leaders say a Vietnamese company known as “Company 72” has razed an estimated 1,000 hectares of protected forest since 2011. …
“The villagers complained to the authorities many times, but nothing happens and Company 72 never stops,” said Chhay Thy, provincial co-ordinator for rights group Adhoc. Companies are not allowed to fell protected forest even if the forest overlaps with land granted to the company, he added. …
Company 72, for which no contact information was available, was allegedly caught clearing more than 40 hectares of protected forest in another part of O’Yadav district last week and was summonsed by the Ratanakkiri provincial court to face accusations of illegal logging in February. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042965293/National/forest-allegedly-cleared-by-company.html
40 hectares razed in R’kiri
April 26th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Disputed Land, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
More than 40 hectares of protected forest in Rattanakiri’s O’Yadav district was razed by a Vietnamese company over the course of six days before they were stopped yesterday by villagers and investigators from rights group Adhoc, a local official said.
Sav Hlin, a village chief in the district, said he had received news from villagers that the company – known to them as Company 72 – had been working in the area.
“After I found out they were clearing the forest, we went straight there to stop the vehicles immediately,” said Hlin, who added that more than 40 hectares of the forest land had been cleared by the time he got there with a group of villagers and two Adhoc investigators. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013042665270/National/40-hectares-razed-in-r-kiri.html
Scale of Wildlife Sanctuary Destruction Denied
April 26th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
A rights worker and forestry official yesterday contradicted a local newspaper report claiming that more than $100 million worth of timber had been illegally extracted from Ratanakirri province’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary. …
Adhoc’s provincial coordinator for Ratanakirri, Chhay Thy, denied having said a total of 16,000 logs had been discovered in the area and also rejected the $100 million estimate of logs’ worth. “I only said that the provincial Forestry Administration discovered more than 3,000 pieces of luxury wood,” Mr. Thy said. “I am not sure where this figure comes from,” he added, referring to the $100 million.
Although the timber was discovered on a concession held by the Hua Anh rubber company, Mr. [Phan] Phoeun [provincial Forestry Administration chief] said he did not believe the company was involved in logging. …
My Thy said … 29 families who had relied on the trees for resin had told Adhoc staff that they had no choice in the felling of the trees, but were compensated by Hua Anh company as well as Fib Rubber, a Chinese rubber firm. …
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/scale-of-wildlife-sanctuary-destruction-denied-20366/
Rubber Firm Accused of Illegal Deforestation
April 26th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
A rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of encroaching on communal land belonging to an ethnic minority in Ratanakkiri province has cleared 150 hectares of forest outside of its economic land concession (ELC) in the past month, according to the senior investigator for local rights group Adhoc.
A communal forestry committee formed by ethnic Jarai minority residents of Lom village in O’Yadaw district’s Paknhai commune has monitored the operations of Vietnamese-owned Company 72 over the past month and reported to Adhoc that, despite promises not to do so, the company has continued to clear land outside of its 6,000-hectare ELC. …
Mr. [Pen] Bonnar [Adhoc’s senior investigator] said that most of the wood that has been cleared by the company in the past month is of low value, and would probably be burned to allow the company to expand its rubber plantation.
Cambodia’s 2001 Land Law says indigenous communities should receive automatic protection of their forests, but Lom villagers have complained over the past five months that what’s left of their land is being systemically cleared by Company 72 and Day Dong Yoeun, another Vietnamese company. …
Aun Pheap
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/rubber-firm-accused-of-illegal-deforestation-20367/
In Mondolkiri Province, Asian Wild Elephants Are Thriving
April 25th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Protected Areas
New York-based organization Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released some remarkable footage of wild Asian elephants in Mondolkiri’s Seima district that offers a rare view of the endangered species in its natural habitat. …
“We released this footage on Earth Day to show that if we work together, conservationists, governments, and local communities can save elephants,” Joe Walston, WCS executive director for the Asia Program, said in the statement. “These beautiful images in Seima Protection Forest are a visual testimony of what conservation success can look like.” …
According to WCS senior technical adviser Alex Dimant, a 2006 DNA study discovered there were 116 elephants living in Seima.
“There’s no evidence that it has declined, no reports of elephant killings,” he said Tuesday by telephone. “They’re not being hunted or poached; the threat is in the form of habitat loss and encroachment,” he added.
Lauren Crothers
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/in-mondolkiri-province-asian-wild-elephants-are-thriving-19970/
Luxury Wood Haul Found on Rubber Concession
April 23rd, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Economic Land Concessions, Environment & Natural Resources, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns, Timber/Wood
Authorities in Ratanakkiri province arrested and charged two men with illegal logging after discovering about 4,000 pieces of luxury wood on an economic land concession held by a Vietnamese rubber company, officials said. …
[Deputy Provincial Forestry Administration Chief Phan Phoeun] said that although the wood was discovered on a concession held by Vietnamese Company Hoa Anh in Andong Meas District, he did not believe the company was involved in illegal logging.
“We think that villagers probably brought the wood to that land to hide it before transporting it to another place,” he said. …
[Ratanakkiri Provincial Court prosecutor Sous La] declined to comment if the individuals were employed by Hoa Anh.
Hoa Anh was granted 9,000 hectares of land on the border of Andong Meas, Lumphat and O’Yadaw districts in 2010. …
Aun Pheap
www.cambodiadaily.com
Thousands drawn to Prey Lang
April 11th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
More than 10,000 families have poured into an area of Prey Lang forest in Kampong Thom province since January, clearing 20,000 hectares of trees to sell as luxury timber and building houses, Prey Lang Community Network members claimed yesterday. …
Many are believed to be from Kampong Cham, Kratie, Kampong Thom, Prey Veng, Svay Rieng and Takeo provinces. …
Ouch Sam On, Kampong Thom deputy governor, said the number of families who had migrated to the forest was nowhere near 10,000 and the area they had logged was at the edge of Prey Lang rather than in it. …
A sub-decree in 2011 established Prey Lang as a protected conservation, forbidding clearing of the forest for private ownership. …
May Titthara
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013041165034/National/thousands-drawn-to-prey-lang.html
Soldiers detain REDD forest patrol members
April 9th, 2013, The Phnom Penh Post, Environment & Natural Resources, Forests, Land Tenure, News Source, Protected Areas, Timber/Wood
Community forest patrollers in Oddar Meanchey’s Samrong district say they were forced to return saws and timber they seized from illegal loggers after soldiers detained and threatened them on Sunday.
The 27-member patrol, funded by development NGO Pact as part of the REDD+ carbon credit program, was detained by two armed soldiers while returning to their office with two chainsaws and 100 planks of luxury timber they had seized on Saturday from four villagers felling trees in protected community forest, said representative Suon Sorn. …
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013040964964/National/soldiers-detain-redd-forest-patrol-members.html
Hun Sen’s Land Titles Receive Rare Praise From Germany
April 4th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Disputed Land, Economic Land Concessions, Farmland, Forests, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns
Since Prime Minister Hun Sen announced an ambitious new plan some 10 months ago to make nearly half a million families official land owners, hardly a week goes by that a rural community does not complain of local officials trying to scam the project.
But when Franz-Volker Muller, who heads the land rights program for the German development agency GIZ, addresses the World Bank’s annual conference on land and poverty in Washington on Tuesday, he will paint a very different picture. In the most comprehensive report on the prime minister’s land titling project to date, Mr. Muller, with a few reservations, will anticipate a resounding success.
“In a period of only one single year, almost two million people, most of whom were illegally using state public land before, will see their land rights secured. This can be considered a tremendous step towards the progressive realization of human rights of Cambodia’s vulnerable and poor populations in rural areas,” he said.
Mr. Hun Sen first announced the project- dubbed Directive No.1- in mid June. Vague on details at first, Mr. Hun Sen said the new titles would be going specifically to families living in state forests, economic land concessions and former timber concessions. The target is to reach 4,700,000 families living on 700,000 parcels of land covering a total 1.8 million hectares by June this year, just one month before the national elections. …
His praise of the project is not without its caveats. He calls his report only a “preliminary” look at an unfinished project, and said that his high marks for the project are “overshadowed” by problems the prime minister’s scheme is causing communities of indigenous ethnic minorities- some of the most vulnerable groups of people in the country. …
Mr. Muller notes, too, the “political calculus” Mr. Hun Sen has surely worked out in timing the land titling project to wrap up just ahead of July’s national elections. …
“The outcome is of course positive for the people who did receive land titles,” said Nicolas Agostini, a legal adviser on lands issues for local rights group Adhoc. “However, the scheme does not address the needs of those people and communities who are most in need of land tenure security: people who live in disputed land areas in the countryside or areas coveted by investors, people who live in the informal urban settlements and indigenous people.” …
Ever the optimist, Mr. Muller still believes that other developing countries in Cambodia’s situation can take some positive lessons away from the project when he delivers his report to the World Bank conference. …
Zsombor Peter and Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/hun-sens-land-titles-receive-rare-praise-from-germany-17312/
Pursat Police Official Charged Over Illegal Fishing
April 1st, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Business & Commercial Development, Environment & Natural Resources, Fishing, Lakes/Rivers, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns
The Pursat Provincial court on Friday charged Krakor district’s judicial police bureau chief for taking bribes in order to allow illegal fishing in the Tonle Sap Lake, officials said yesterday.
[Hong Bunthoeun] stands accused of accepting bribes to allow illicit fishing in parts of the Tonle Sap Lake, in which commercial fishing is banned, said Krakor district deputy police chief Meal Soth.
The government withdrew all licences for large scale fishing lots in the Tonle Sap in February last year after concerns that the lake was being overfished arose. …
Phock Dorn, P.19
www.cambodiadaily.com
Forestry Administration Official Behind Arrests at Biofuel Firm
March 29th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Agriculture & Agri-business, Agro-Industry, Business & Commercial Development, Disputed Land, Forests, International Relations, Land Tenure, Protected Areas, Social Concerns
A court official said yesterday that the complaint that led to the imprisonment of a British man and two Cambodian staff at a troubled biofuel firm was filed last year by a senior Forestry Administration official. …
Gregg Fryett, 45, was arrested by the Anti-Corruption Unit in Phnom Penh on Saturday and charged by the Banteay Meanchey provincial court with forging a land ownership document. …
The complaint accuses IGE and another company, Aphiwatch Meanchey, of illegally clearing State forestland in Svay Check, where the companies begun developing a jatropha plantation.
Aphiwath Meanchey is owned by Mao Maly, the wife of former Royal Cambodian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Ke Kim Yan. …
Kuch Naren, P.18
www.cambodiadaily.com
Initial Mapping For Communal Titles Underway in Mondolkiri
March 28th, 2013, The Cambodia Daily, Land Tenure, Protected Areas
Initial mapping of three ethnic minority Banong communities in Mondolkiri province got underway yesterday, a critical step in their plans to gain much coveted communal titles to their ancestral land.
Established by the 2001 Land Law, communal land titles were designed specifically to protect the ancestral land of the country’s minorities from outside developers by making the land almost impossible to sell. …
“As soon as we get the primary mapping finished, we will be relieved because our lands will be protected from outsiders,” said Khut Chanra, deputy chief of one of three Banong communities.
James Heenan, representative for the U.N’s local human rights office, which is paying for the mapping process, said the three communities should be mapped in about a month’s time and it was too soon to say how much land, or how many families, would be covered. …
Kuch Naren, P.18
www.cambodiadaily.com