Forest Conflict in Cambodia

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Forestry / Forestry Economics, University of Joensuu (Faculty of Forest Science), language: English, abstract: In Cambodia, the majority of the population lives in rural areas, earning their livelihood based on forest resources for timber and non-timber forest products.Because the nation's forests provide great benefit to many people, the forest conflicts are unavoidable in the society. The conflict between forest industries and local communities in Tum Ring commune, Kampong Thom province was taken as the example because it was the noticeable forest conflict in Cambodia. After the Royal Government of Cambodia allowed the domestic and international companies to manage and harvest the forest under forest concession permits, local communities in the Tum Ring commune suffered as a result of forest harvesting operations due to restricted access of forest resources. As a result, there were some conflicts between the local communities and forest concessionaires. Global witness, an international ENGO based in the United Kingdom, started its campaign against forest industries and the government to draw the attention of national and international organizations. The forest conflicts seem not to end yet even the government decided to suspend and cancel some the forest concession permits in response to the issues. After forest concession activities were stopped, Economic Land Concession Projects were introduced by the government and conflicts between local people and rubber plantation companies occurred again. Under the intervention from international institutions and the government, the conflict has been solved by offering compensation and other alternative solutions to the local communities. Forestconflict in Cambodia can be seen as the lesson learned of government regarding to forest concession and economic land concession scheme. To avoid forest conflicts, environmental and social economic impact assessments at local level need to be donebefore the implementation of any development projects like economic land concession.