Managing public lands for equitable and sustainable development in Cambodia
Public lands accounted for 80% of the country area until a decade ago. As Cambodia emerged from three decades of civil war and internal strife, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) has granted more than 10% of the country area or 50% of the cultivatable land as large scale “Economic Land Concessions” (ELCs) to private companies, mostly foreign owned, in a mostly rigged process. Land disputes have become a permanent fixture in the press and a hot issue on human rights reports.