Conflict-Ridden Land Concession Moved to New Forest Area

4 min read
The locations of Horizon Agriculture Development’s old and new economic land concessions in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces.
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A decade-old rubber plantation project beset with disputes with local residents has had its 9,000 hectares relocated to an intact forest in Stung Treng.

A sub-decree signed by the Council of Ministers in March said 9,787 hectares would be provided to Horizon Agriculture Development as “compensation” over the earlier failed project in Kratie.

Horizon received 9,969 hectares in Kratie’s Snuol district in 2010, according to Open Development Cambodia data.

But it quickly fell into conflict with local villagers, who said they were already farming the area. Residents blocked bulldozers and protested outside the district hall as hundreds of families staked claims to the area and opposed the plantation development.

Global Forest Watch shows widespread forest cover loss in the two years since the concession was granted, and from 2001 to 2021, the former Horizon concession area lost 5,740 hectares of tree cover, equivalent to a 50% decrease since 2000, according to the mapping platform.

Cambodia’s controversial economic land concession program was halted a decade ago amid similar conflicts across hundreds of thousands of hectares across the country.

On Monday, human rights group Licadho raised the alarm on Horizon’s relocation in what it described as a “reversal of the moratorium on new ELCs.”

The documents uncovered by the group show that Horizon’s concession is being transferred to a different company, TSMW, and it was intended to “end the disputes and problems that happened in the past.”

The documents show the move was requested by the Agriculture Ministry.

Ministry spokesperson Im Rachana, however, said on Tuesday that it was not a new economic land concession.

“It is paying back to the Horizon company, which was granted an economic land concession in Kratie in 2010 but [the land] was allocated back to the people in 2014. The government decided to reimburse the company after assessing and finding out the impact on the company,” Rachana said.

“I would like to inform you that the decision to suspend the granting of economic land concessions by the royal government of Cambodia in 2012 is still in effect.”

The new location, in Stung Treng’s Borey O’Svay Senchey, Sesan and Siem Pang districts, is large — about 9 km on each side.

Unlike the Kratie site, which is crisscrossed with farms, according to satellite imagery, the Stung Treng location appears to be mostly covered with trees aside from roads that have been cut through the area since March last year.

O’Svay commune chief Rath Sun, however, said there were still overlapping land claims with local residents even at the new site.

“There is an impact. The district is handling this issue,” Sun said.

Licadho spokesman Am Sam Ath said just building roads into the concession had affected 400 nearby families.

“The families who have their farmland inside the company [area] are preparing documents to hand to authorities,” Sam Ath said.

Locals were not informed about the new project in their area, he added.

“Licadho is concerned and calls for an urgent solution to prevent a dispute from happening. … It must properly study the environmental impact, must have a discussion with local authorities and the people who are affected, and there must be a peaceful solution with the people before granting the economic land concession.”

People who picked up Commerce Ministry-listed phone numbers for Horizon Agriculture and TSMW said they no longer worked for the companies. TSMW was incorporated in 2019.

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