At least 1.76 million jobs in the nation of about 16 million people are at risk due to COVID-19, while the poverty rate could double, to about one-in-four people, the World Bank said in May. Cambodian human rights groups have this year called for a freeze on loan repayments due to the virus and for lenders to return more than one million land titles held as collateral.
Officials at the Land Management Ministry declined to accept a petition from nearly 1,000 protesters who had gathered outside the building on September 21 to demand a resolution to their long-running land disputes in several provinces.
Around 1,000 villagers from three Cambodian provinces blocked the road leading to the Land Ministry in Phnom Penh on Monday to demand government help in resolving disputes over land taken by private companies and politically connected businesspeople, sources in the country said.
At least 1.76 million jobs in the nation of about 16 million people are at risk due to COVID-19, while the poverty rate could double, to about one-in-four people, the World Bank said in May. Cambodian human rights groups have this year called for a freeze on loan repayments due to the virus and for lenders to return more than one million land titles held as collateral.
Preah Vihear Provincial Court prosecutor Phy Sithorng issued a summons for four forest activists to appear in court on September 14 over charges of incitement to commit a felony after PNT Co Ltd filed a complaint against them concerning a 2015 land dispute.
Cambodia’s government has strenuously promoted long-term leasing of unused land as Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) to attract investors and encourage development in the impoverished nation, but observers say the policy has resulted in few benefits at the cost of huge social and environmental impacts.
A group of families in Banteay Meanchey province filed a lawsuit on August 5 against four officials and 13 local businessmen alleging they used forged documents to claim ownership of more than 100 hectares of land in a long-running conflict dating back nearly two decades.
Kampong Speu provincial police and NGO ACNCIPO director Chea Hean stopped nearly 100 people from grabbing more than 200ha illegally in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary on Wednesday.
The incident occurred at the Trapaing Thmea village in Oral district.
Kep provincial police said they have identified a group who used the replacement Khmer New Year holiday to encroach on 4ha of flooded mangrove forests.
Police took down tow sheds measuring 18sqm and removed 100 stone poles used to mark land boundaries in an area inhabited by a community of fishermen in Angkorl village, in Damnak Changaur district’s Angkorl commune.
Binit Agrawal analyses the global impact of a Thai court judgement, which provides a judicial forum to farmers from Cambodia, who were victims of transnational land grabbing.
The Prey Lang Protected Area has lost more than 100,000 hectares of forest between 2000 and 2019, more than half of which became plantations, according to a report released August 10 by the NGO Jesuit Service Cambodia’s Ecology Program and the Cambodian Youth Network.
Monday, 10 August 2020 marked an important day for indigenous communities from Busra commune in Cambodia as they signed an agreement with the rubber company Socfin Cambodia to settle a long-lasting dispute about their communal and spiritual lands.