Hundreds of families in Preah Vihear, Kratie and Siem Reap confronted environmental officials and soldiers in August amid land disputes, including changes to protected area boundaries that are uprooting them from their farmland.
In Siem Reap, around 100 soldiers armed with AK-47s uprooted a community’s mango trees, alleging they were using the disputed area illegally, according to a CamboJA News report.
A community resident, in Svay Loeu district’s Kantuot commune, told the media outlet that the armed soldiers arrived on August 28 and destroyed 500 of their mango trees on 5 hectares of land.
Around 200 residents of the Chob Som community have been in dispute with the Region 4 military for more than a decade over the land, according to previous reports.
Last year, however, authorities said they were turning the area into a protected area, calling it the “Chob Som Nature Protection Area,” leading to increased pressure on evictions.
Kantuot commune previously lay between two protected areas, the Kulen Prom Tep Wildlife Sanctuary and Phnom Kulen National Park.
But a series of Environment Ministry documents from July this year extended many of the country’s 73 protected areas in unpredictable ways, including extending both Kulen Prom Tep and Phnom Kulen into Kantuot commune.
In Kratie, the Kraol indigenous community has also protested over the expansions, saying newly arrived patrollers were obstructing them from farming.
The indigenous group, which may number fewer than 3,000, burned down an Environment Ministry outpost in remote Kratie on August 5, and have since been summoned to court, according to CamboJA.
A Prey Vihear community has also been in dispute with environment officials telling them to stop farming, and around 200 families sent a letter to the provincial governor on August 15 seeking his intervention, according to Radio Free Asia.
The Chheb district residents said officials arrived in July to erect fence posts and prevent them from using the land, which they have been doing for more than a decade.
The area spans around 200 hectares in Chheb II commune, but officials say it is state-owned, according to RFA.
The U.S.-run broadcaster also reported discontent among land disputants in the Lor Peang conflict in Kampong Chhnang, which involves KDC International, a company run by the mother of Mines and Energy Ministry spokesman Suy Dimanche.
The community had recently hosted NGO representatives inquiring about the state of the land conflict, and the following day, on August 20, a village chief summoned them and accused them of insulting him, according to RFA.
The community also continued to be monitored whenever they met or traveled to Phnom Penh to submit petitions, they said.
Separately, 10 villages in Kampong Speu appealed to their provincial governor for help as a lake in the Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary was being filled up with sand for a development by a soldier, also according to RFA. The villages are in Oral district’s Trapaing Chor commune and Thpong district’s Omlaing commune.