The original French version of this article was prepared at the request of the Nature & Progress (Nature & Progrès) journal and published in November 2011 (No 85) issue in the section Resources : the plundering (Ressources: la spoliation).

Translated by Levi E. Johnson

Extracts :

This is a judgment of Supreme Court of India to check grabbing of village common land including ponds and water bodies (called in different names) by unscrupulous persons, political clout, powerful vested interests, corrupt state authorities, etc by fraudulent practices and ensure their protection and safeguard.

Policy Brief 41
by Ruth Hall

The paper aims to identify the rationality of peasant communities and their contribution to rural development in Kampong Thom province. To do so; an interdisciplinary analytical framework addresses the dynamics of land use and land tenure; the strategies of labor force allocation as well as the determinants of land and labor agricultural productivities amongst peasant communities. It rests on details field surveys in two communes located in very distinct agro-ecological settings of Kampong Thom province.

The purpose of this assessment is to assist identification of key drivers of deforestation and/or forest degradation in Cambodia and review past efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation, in order to identify promising approaches for the national REDD Strategy. The report focuses on drivers of deforestation and degradation and additional components covered under REDD+, i.e. conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of carbon stocks, other than in the extent to which these aspects contribute to reducing deforestation and forest degradation.

Community forests (CFs) in northern Burma have been gaining momentum since the mid-2000s, spearheaded by national NGOs, mostly in response to protect village land from encroaching agribusiness concessions. While the production of these new CF landscapes represents the material resistance against state-sponsored rubber, in effect it produces contested state authority by formalizing control of former customary swidden hills under the Forestry Department.

The current study attempts to examine whether large-scale agricultural investment of this type benefits the poor and how this investment can be implemented to increase benefits for the poor. It is arguable whether the poor need more land to grow crops to meet their food security requirements or need to benefit from large-scale agricultural investment in Cambodia. Although the poor households are capable of operating small plots of a few hectares each, they generally lack capital and the means to work large chunks of new land with forests or degrade forests.

The rise of urbanization and development in Cambodia in recent years has led to a dramatic increase in land prices, with particularly high values for land in the capital city of Phnom Penh. Some government officials have benefited from the high price of land by unlawfully granting land title to private developers in exchange for compensation. Once these officials have granted land title to developers, they forcibly evict from the property existing residents, who mostly come from poor and marginalized communities. There is rampant corruption at every stage of the "development" process.

The Land Law of 2001 was a landmark statute intended to strengthen and protect the rights of ordinary Cambodian landholders. A land titling programme (LMAP) was initiated soon afterwards, with extensive World Bank and donor support. The land occupied by the community of Boeung Kak, in the heart of the capital was excluded from this process, despite evidence of prior residence going back decades. Instead it was classifi ed as having “unknown status” by the LMAP, as “state land” by default, and as a “development zone” by authorities.

Building upon the technical paper containing a review of the existing literature on the potential costs and benefits of adaptation options (FCCC/TP/2009/2), this report synthesizes information contained in submissions from Parties and relevant organizations, and other relevant sources, on efforts undertaken to assess the costs and benefits of adaptation options. A summary of lessons learned and good practices is provided.

INTRODUCTION: Over the last 30 years, the context of development in Cambodian has undergone dramatic changes. A succession of deep transformations, characterized by a complete restructuring of institutional and socio-economic environment, has resulted in a singular situation. Cambodian society remains largely agrarian, with land being the corner stone of the production system for a large majority of the population.