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What’s Happening in Cambodia’s Forests?
This blog is part of Global Forest Watch’s Global Insights series. Although many parts of the world are experiencing forest loss, the factors motivating these losses differ between countries and regions. Global Insights takes a local look at historical and current trends in forested countries across the world to highlight the diversity of forest issues. To read other posts in the series, click here.
HOSTILE TAKEOVER How Cambodia’s ruling family are pulling the strings on the economy and amassing vast personal fortunes with extreme consequences for the population.
A major investigation by Global Witness has revealed how Cambodia’s ruling family are pulling the strings on Cambodia’s economy and amassing vast personal fortunes with extreme consequences for the population. The report, Hostile Takeover, sheds light on a huge network of secret deal-making and corruption that has underpinned Hun Sen’s 30-year dictatorial reign of murder, torture and the imprisonment of his political opponents.
The fragmentation of land tenure systems in Cambodia: peasants and the formalization of land rights
In Cambodia, land and natural resources occupy a central place in the production systems of peasants who represent about 80 percent of the country’s population. The development and governance of socio-ecological systems trigger considerable economic, social and environmental issues that need to be addressed urgently given the profound nature of the transformations at play in these systems across Cambodia.
The Politics and Ethics of Land Concessions in Rural Cambodia
In rural Cambodia the rampant allocation of state land to political elites and foreign investors in the form of “Economic Land Concessions (ELCs)”—estimated to cover an area equivalent to more than 50 % of the country’s arable land—has been associated with encroachment on farmland, community forests and indigenous territories and has contributed to a rapid increase of rural landlessness. By contrast, less than 7,000 ha of land have been allotted to land-poor and landless farmers under the pilot project for “Social Land Concessions (SLCs)” supported by various donor agencies.
Cambodia: Land in Conflict An Overview of the Land Situation
As noted by the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia (the “Special Rapporteur”) last August at the United Nations (“UN”) Human Rights Council, “Land rights continue to be a major issue in this country.”1 Conflict over land – combined with the widespread and systematic violation of land rights – is one of the most prominent human rights problems faced by Cambodians throughout the country, one whose roots can be traced to the abolition of private ownership when the Khmer Rouge took over power in 1975.
A TURNING POINT? LAND, HOUSING AND NATURAL RESOURCES RIGHTS IN CAMBODIA IN 2012
Whereas 2011 had seen a sharp increase in the number of Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) granted by the Royal Government of Cambodia to private companies, in 2012 conflicts became more acute and protests multiplied. The government showed that it had understood the seriousness of the situation by taking initiatives aimed at resolving land disputes, addressing some of the issues related to ELCs and granting thousands of land titles to rural families.
Logging, Mining, And Agricultural Concessions Data Transparency: A Survey Of 14 Forested Countries
Global demand for timber, agricultural commodities, and extractives is a significant driver of deforestation worldwide. Transparent land-concessions data for these large-scale commercial activities are essential to understand drivers of forest loss, monitor environmental impacts of ongoing activities, and ensure efficient and sustainable allocation of land.
South–South Cooperation, Agribusiness, and African Agricultural Development: Brazil and China in Ghana and Mozambique
The rise of new powers in development has generated much debate on the extent to which South–South Cooperation (SSC) constitutes a new paradigm of development more relevant to African needs or a disguise for a new form of imperialism. This paper critically examines the rise of Chinese and Brazilian technical and economic cooperation in African agriculture with two cases drawn from Ghana and Mozambique.
The dark underbelly of land struggles: the instrumentalization of female activism and emotional resistance in Cambodia
Facing land grabs and eviction in the name of development, women worldwide increasingly join land rights struggles despite often deeply engrained images of female domesticity and conventional gender norms. Yet, the literature on female agency in the context of land struggles has remained largely underexplored. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork, my findings suggest that land rights activism in Cambodia has undergone a gendered re-framing process.
Conflict, collusion and corruption in small-scale gold mining: Chinese miners and the state in Ghana
As gold prices soared from 2008 onwards, tens of thousands of foreign miners, especially from China, entered the small-scale mining sector in Ghana, despite it being ‘reserved for Ghanaian citizens’ by law. A free-for-all ensued in which Ghanaian and Chinese miners engaged in both contestation and collaboration over access to gold, a situation described as ‘out of control’ and a ‘culture of impunity’. Where was the state? This paper addresses the question of how and why pervasive and illicit foreign involvement occurred without earlier state intervention.