In light of the increasingly volatile nature of the land conflict in Cambodia, this Report aims to describe the sources, forms and impact of the conflict throughout the country. The Report offers an overview of the land conflict throughout the country and provides recommendations to the RGC. Chapter 1 (Introduction) provides a brief overview of the status of land rights and the different ownership system throughout Cambodia’s history and of the land situation in today’s Cambodia, before discussing the scope, methodology and purpose of this Report.

The purpose of the report is to provide documentary evidence of land disputes recorded throughout 2013. This evidence was gathered from articles on land disputes from local printed media, meetings with Land and Housing Right Network (LAHRiN)2 members, and through on site data collection.

The Coca-Cola Company believes that land grabbing is unacceptable. Our Company does not typically purchase ingredients directly from farms, nor are we owners of sugar farms or plantations, but as a major buyer of sugar, we acknowledge our responsibility to take action and to use our influence to help protect the land rights of local communities. The Coca-Cola Company commits to the following plan of action to prevent and address land grabs and other land controversies in our supply chain.

Over 72% of land leases involve foreign investors, primarily Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai companies. Most products from these operations are exported as raw material to the investor countries, leaving little to no room for added value domestically to benefit the Laotian economy. Rubber is the largest single industry within land investment, making up 34% of all land concessions. The two largest rubber investors are Vietnamese corporations, Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) and Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG).

Under Vietnam’s State land ownership regime, the Government holds supreme authority over compulsory land acquisition. The results show that many improvements in land acquisition policies have been made, but poor implementation measures largely cannot prevent or even mitigate the adverse impacts on displaced persons. In particular, ineffective compensation measures and a lack of production land and livelihood alternatives accelerate the resistance of communities displaced as a result of hydropower development.

ABSTRACT ORIGIN UNKNOWN: This report provides a recent update on land policies in the ethnic regions of Burma following the 2010 national elections and the beginning of the ceasefire with the Karen National Union in 2012. The authors argue that, while military conflict and associated abuses have declined, the Burmese government’s commitment to foreign investment and export-led economic growth is making traditional land tenure even less secure than before.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Burma has entered a pivotal stage in its political and economic development. The advent of a new quasi-civilian government has raised the prospect of fundamental reforms. This has sparked great investment interest among governments and the private sector in the region and beyond, to extract the country’s natural-resource wealth, and to develop large-scale infrastructure projects to establish strategic ‘corridors’ to connect Burma to the wider economic region.

The series of studies of which this is the overview are a contribution to the third year of this process. The aim of the studies has been to pull together in a simple form, updated information about large-scale land acquisitions in the region, with the aim of identifying trends, common threats, divergences and possible solutions. As well as summarising trends in investment, trade, crop development and land tenure arrangements, the studies focus on the land and forest tenure and human rights challenges.

The Government of Vietnam has identified the conversion of forests to plantations of industrial crops such as rubber as one of the five drivers of deforestation and degradation in the country. Presently, Vietnam is actively participating in various international initiatives such as the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) and Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) programmes.

INTRODUCTION: Over the years HURFOM has produced a number of accounts highlighting the hardships faced by Mon farmers who became victims of land confiscation or unjust land acquisition.1 In this report HURFOM follows-up on previously documented abuses and concentrates on an emerging new trend: farmers’ active and collective pursuits for rights to their land. Disputed Territory aims to elaborate on the activities of and express solidarity with farmers who are resolutely, and in some cases for the first time, seeking justice regarding their land.

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.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: Foreign investment in agriculture has expanded since 2005, although the figures remain modest. The Cambodian government has prioritized investment in the sector, and an important part of the government strategy has been its policies on land concessions. A 2005 sub-decree sets out the procedures, mechanisms and institutional arrangements for offering economic land concessions (ELCs), with the objective of improving crop diversity, productivity, and employment, among other benefits. By 2009, just over a third of ELCs had gone to foreign investors.