A standoff between residents on land earmarked for Phnom Penh’s new international airport against developers and authorities continues, as the gulf between the land’s rising value and authorities’ insistence on paying only pre-development prices as compensation widens.
Some 100 Preah Sihanouk villagers protested in support of six families whose land is being claimed by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s nephew, as the nephew said he had a legal title to the land while the local commune chief said he didn’t know how Hun Chea had obtained it.
An under-construction resort in Banteay Meanchey province allegedly began clearing an adjacent protected wetland and its flooded forests — designated as shelter for breeding fish — leading to the arrests of 11 workers, local police said.
Kandal province villagers have erected tents to stand guard over their rice fields on the site of Phnom Penh’s new airport development, as two bulldozers arrived and began to clear the area.
The Environment Ministry has told all provincial governors to immediately stop the issuing of land certificates in protected areas such as biodiversity corridors, saying 70 sanctuaries in 11 provinces were facing encroachment.
A Kampot province port and seaside sand-filling project has gone quiet after the senator leading the project died amid disputes with two marine fishing communities, though the late politician’s assistant says the development has not been abandoned.
Hong Kong Customs reported it had seized seven containers containing HK$1.1 million (US$140,000) worth of wood that arrived from Cambodia between April 29 and May 5, saying it was the largest cache of protected wood the department had caught in the last five years.
Hundreds of Kampong Chhnang residents blocked a national road in Pursat province on Tuesday so they could resume farming on land they say they have tended for decades, as authorities confiscated a recorder and deleted photos belonging to a VOD reporter covering the protest.
Foreign embassies and rights advocates have decried the sentencing of three members of an environmentalist group to more than a year in prison over their activism, with some, including the group’s founder, saying they should be released and their calls for environmental protection supported rather than criminalized.
A shopping mall, hotel, casino, warehouses and mixed-use areas are proposed to be built on a wildlife sanctuary near the Vietnamese border under a request made by the Mondulkiri provincial administration to the Interior Ministry.
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