A member of the Prey Lang Network of Cambodia traveled to Rio last month to participate in the CSO Green Development Conference, running alongside the RIO+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Brazil from June 20-22. Sok Heng made three presentations about Cambodia’s land and forest situation, the implementation of REDD+, and social movement in Cambodia.
A 15 year old girl was killed while taking part in a demonstration against the development of a rubber plantation on farmland on May 16th in eastern Kratie province. Authorities say the land in question is owned by the government, but activists argue villagers have been farming the land for many years and have nowhere else to go if it is developed by a private company.
Cultural Survival is deeply saddened and angered by the killing of Chut Wutty at the hands of Cambodia military police.
Wutty was a great ally to the campaign to Save Prey Lang and the director of the Cambodian environmental watch dog the Natural Resource Protection Group. He was shot yesterday by military police while engaged in field research into illegal logging and land seizures in the Cardamom mountains.
More than 300 activists took to patrolling the Prey Lang forest again for four days, March 23-26, to combat illegal logging. Dressed as Avatars from the blockbuster movie, members of the Prey Lang Network and the Cambodia Natural Resources Conservation group clashed with police and private security guards at a sawmill within Prey Lang forest.
Pok Hong is an Indigenous Kuy activist from Cambodia who has been a protagonist in the fight to save Prey Lang forest from illegal logging and rubber plantations. Read the following interview to get to know Hong and why the fate of Prey Lang forest matters. Special thanks to our campaign partners at the Prey Lang Network for sharing this interview.
We have just learned that the Cambodian Government has granted four more landconcessions in the core area of the Prey Lang forest. If these go ahead, it could mean“game over” for the forest, say Kuy community members who are struggling hard to protect the forest.
Ouch Sam On, a deputy governor of Cambodia's Kampong Thom province, told Prey Lang activists last week that he "would not be responsible if they were shot while protecting Prey Lang Forest," according to our campaign partners at the Prey Lang Network. The comment was made after Sam On ordered activists to desist their regular patrols through the forest, where they monitor for illegal logging. On their patrols, members of the Prey Lang Network regularly burn any wood they find that has been illegally cut down by loggers.
On February 17, the prime minister of Cambodia signed a sub-decree that protects 480,000 hectares of the Prey Lang forest as a conservation area. Local activists from the Prey Lang Network are celebrating the decision, but remain skeptical of the plans.
Human rights organizations and government institutions of Southeast Asia formed a joint statement after a four-day workshop in Bali, Indonesia, this past November. The workshop was convened by the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission and organized by Forest Peoples Programme and Indonesian NGO SawitWatch, with participation of 60 individuals from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Cambodia.
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
