Locals face eviction at Oz Minerals claim

Tuesday, 15 June 2010
May Titthara
The Phnom Penh Post

THIRTY families in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district have ignored a deadline to tear down homes that government officials have ordered destroyed to make way for a gold-mining concession belonging to Oz Minerals.

In a meeting on Saturday, district authorities told the families that they needed to dismantle their homes and relocate by Sunday. On Monday, however, members of the community remained defiant, demanding either land or an unspecified amount of monetary compensation.

“I don’t care how much pressure the authorities put on me – I will not agree to move unless they provide me with compensation to buy new land,” said resident Sen Chhorn, who vowed to remain on her land even if her house is torn down.

Sok Seav, another Keo Seima resident, said she had lived in the community since 2006, though she noted that she does not have a land title. She, too, said the company should offer some form of compensation.

“We came to this area before Oz Minerals arrived, so they have to pay villagers if they need our land,” Sok Seav said.

An Oz Minerals spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Monday.

But Keo Seima Deputy Governor Len Vanna said the families’ claims were suspect, and that they had only recently moved to his district from a handful of other provinces. He threatened a harsh reprisal if the community is not dismantled in short order.

“If they do not agree to tear down their homes, we will burn them to the ground,” he said.

Am Sam Ann, a district councillor in Keo Seima, said the government had no plans to award the villagers compensation because they had set up their homes “anarchically” on land belonging to Oz Minerals.

Sam Sarin, Mondulkiri provincial coordinator for the local rights group Adhoc, said the villagers had moved to the area in the hope of benefiting from commerce generated by the company’s presence.

Oz Minerals, which began its operations in Cambodia in 2006, is also drilling for copper in Mondulkiri.

In March, the firm announced it had identified inferred resources of 605,000 ounces of gold from 8.1 million tonnes of ore at grades of 2.3 grams of gold per tonne at its interests in Keo Seima.

Villagers say Mong Reththy project threatens their land

Mong Reththy seen being decorated by Hun Xen

Tuesday, 11 May 2010
Tep Nimol and Mom Kunthear
The Phnom Penh Post

VILLAGERS in Mondulkiri province’s Keo Seima district said Monday that surveyors over the weekend had begun measuring off land in two of three villages that stand to be affected by a concession granted to a rubber company owned by business tycoon Mong Reththy.

Local villager Gos Saly said surveyors had first appeared in Keo Seima district earlier this year on behalf of the Rithy Kiri Seima Rubber Plantation company, and that this past weekend they had ramped up measurement work for a proposed plantation that he said would occupy about 40 percent of the 8,000 hectares of land in the district’s O’Am, O’Rorna and O’Sneng villages.

“It is our land because we bought it in 1997. We have letters to prove this to local authorities, but we don’t have land titles,” he said.

Eng Neang, 51, another Keo Seima resident, said local authorities had assisted the rubber company in securing the concession, but had not bothered to assist local residents in securing land titles.

“We are not happy with the development company because they are oppressing us poor people. They have never helped us, and they are robbing our rice pot,” Eng Neang said.

“I think that the authorities have taken bribes from the company,” she added.

Mong Reththy said Monday that the government had granted the 5,000-hectare land concession to his company in 2007. The surveyors, he added, had measured off territory both for the rubber plantation and for a social land concession for the villagers, who he said were living on a protected wildlife preserve.

“The villagers are confused because this will benefit them and the authorities will provide them with land titles,” Mong Reththy said.

“They live in a wild animal shelter, and it would be easy for someone to pursue a complaint against those villagers with the authorities.”

Keo Seima district Governor Sin Van Vuth said Monday that local authorities would provide the villagers with land titles after the surveying process concluded.

“About 60 percent of those villagers cooperated with us, and there are two more villages that we will survey next time,” he said.

Mong Reththy was named in a report released on Monday by the watchdog group Global Witness, which linked him to sand mining projects in Koh Kong province that the group says are destroying the livelihoods of local fishermen.

Cambodia’s new park protects tigers, elephants and CO2

Washington, October 25 (ANI): The government of Cambodia has transformed a former logging concession into a new, Yosemite-sized protected area that safeguards not only threatened primates, tigers, and elephants, but also massive stores of carbon.T

he Royal Government’s Council of Ministers recently declared the creation of the Seima Protection Forest, which covers more than 1,100 square miles along Cambodia’s eastern border with Vietnam.

“We commend the Royal Government of Cambodia for their decision to protect this important refuge for the region’s wildlife and also for safeguarding stocks of carbon,” said WCS Asia Program Director Colin Poole. Seima is the first protected area in Cambodia created with the conservation of forest carbon as one of its key goals.

WCS is helping to measure carbon stocks contained in Seima Protection Forest to calculate the total amount of carbon dioxide emissions that will not be released to the atmosphere as a result of the project’s work on reducing deforestation. This effort will support WCS’s “Carbon for Conservation” initiatives to help provide incentives to people to protect their forest in high-biodiversity landscapes, which are being developed in conjunction with negotiations on a proposed international policy known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). In addition to work in Cambodia, WCS is supporting similar efforts in Bolivia, Guatemala, Chile, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Madagascar, and Indonesia.

”In addition to safeguarding the wildlife of Cambodia, Seima Protection Forest will serve as an important model for demonstrating how REDD could be implemented on the ground,” said Dr. Jane Carter Ingram of WCS’s Conservation Support Team. “Forests provide numerous benefits for both wildlife and rural communities, so efforts such as these will help on local, regional and global scales,” she added. The newly designated protected area contains 23 species of carnivore, including seven cat species, two bears, and two species of wild dog.

Vietnamese illegally logging in Mondulkiri

23 June 2007
By Or Phearith
Radio Free Asia
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

Villagers form Chhneng village, Sre Khtum commune, Keo Seima district, Mondulkiri province, said that Vietnamese people have crossed the border into Cambodia for small tree logging activities and transporting the logs back to Vietnam by motorcycles.

Chhneng villagers said the Vietnamese arrive in small groups through the border gate, each group comprising 2 to 3 members and up to 5 members, they came to Cambodia by motorcycles, and they bring along chainsaws to cut down trees in area 33 located in Chhneng commune. The Vietnamese people claim that they log the trees to harvest the tree center core exclusively.

Chhneng villagers said: “The Vietnamese came in to log the trees because (the Cambodian officials) take their (bribe) money, that’s why they come in large number, it’s a mess there. They only log the valuable (Ko-koh) trees to take back to their country. When they cut down the trees, they cut out the tree core which is the most valuable part, and they cut it into 3 wood logs measuring each 1-meter long. They transport the wood logs back by motorcycles, each motorcycle carrying 2 to 3 wood logs.”

A Cambodian villager who is involved in professional logging, said that when he went to the forest, he encountered groups of Vietnamese loggers, and he asked them to see their permits for wood logging: “In Chhneng, also called (area) 33, when I saw them logging trees, I asked them (for their permits), they said that they made payments at the border. They came in to log the trees, and they use motorcycles to transport back wood logs measuring between 1.2-meter to 1.5-meter long, depending on the ability of the motorcycle drivers. When I asked them, they said that they paid the fees at the border, and they even showed documents to me. They came in numerous groups, sometimes they go to one location, and then to another location the next time around”

The deputy forestry chief of Mondulkiri province said that area 33 in Chhneng village falls under the control of the environment department of Snuol, Kratie province.

Nop Chanthy, the director of the environment department of Kratie province, confirmed that the control of region 33 is planned to be transferred to Mondulkiri province, but that right now, the situation is still unclear. However, he said that based on the (illegal) logging report, the local authorities in Mondulkiri should arrest (the illegal Vietnamese loggers).

Sin Vannavuth, the Keo Seima district governor, said that the border gate allows free passage for people from both sides of the border, but some bad people are crossing over to Cambodia to conduct illegal activities.

Sin Vannavuth said: “In the past, we arrested Vietnamese people and we educated them, we even called the Vietnamese authority to come over to educate them and fine them and then we send them back across the border gate (to Vietnam). These (illegal logging) cases did actually take place, and we made the arrest, but now, they are taking advantage of this opportunity. We will not let it happen, there was nobody who authorize them (to conduct illegal logging).”

The arrival of groups of Vietnamese loggers cause a lot of concerns among the Chhneng villagers who are afraid that valuable woods in Cambodia will be logged and taken to Vietnam, and forcing the Cambodian villagers to buy back from Vietnam finished furniture built with lower quality woods, and at a higher price.