News on Land

Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth (ERA/FoEN) and other stakeholders have said practice of gender inequality in land governance has increased poverty and deprivation among women in the society.
 

One of the ugliest features of the modern world is the exploitation of natural resources for private gain irrespective of its consequences for the environment and the larger community, especially the poor majority.

Real estate transactions in Cambodia’s land division projects remain in jeopardy more than nine months on since the onset and spread of Covid-19, experts have said.

The land division segment had experienced an unbridled boom in the years leading up to the outbreak with prices on a steady march upwards, above all in Phnom Penh and surrounding areas, they 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.

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.

Four years ago, Phu Thap Boek -- a popular mountainous attraction in Phetchabun province -- became synonymous with the success of the military regime in reclaiming forest land, or the Tuang Kuen Phuen Pa campaign when the state took back forest land from illegal occupants.

Sustainable peace is not divorced from justice, which involves the elimination of unacceptable political, economic and cultural forms of discrimination.

Main photo: Protestors calling for land reform, Jakarta, September 2019 / Dhemas Reviyanto / ANTARA FOTO

The people of Walewale in the Northern Region are demanding answers as to why lands allocated for a Watermelon Processing Factory and a 100-bed capacity hospital have now been turned into a maize farm.