Four Kampong Chhnang communes will see families relocated off of floating houses on the Tonle Sap lake, with 443 hectares set aside in a decree that says people will be moved to a new village on the land and not be allowed to return to the water.

Book No. 11 in the Royal Gazette, publicly released last month, contains a sub-decree reclassifying 741 hectares in total of Tonle Sap state land in Boribor district.

Some 75 hectares in Chhnok Trou commune is given to the Agriculture Ministry; 222 hectares in the same commune to the provincial administration for an aquaculture project; and 443 hectares as a resettlement site for Chhnok Trou, Kampong Preah Koki, Khun Rang and Trapaing Chan communes for families living on the water.

The sub-decree, dated January 11, says the land being reclassified is formerly part of “zone 3” in the Tonle Sap protected area, where restrictions are most stringent and farming and fishing are banned.

Ownership would be transferred to families and they would not be allowed to relocate to the water again, the decree says.

Families living in floating houses — often Cham Muslim or ethnic Vietnamese residents — have repeatedly been targeted for evictions around the country.

Two years ago, the government said it was turning its attention to the preservation of the huge Tonle Sap lake and its surrounding flooded forests following years of encroachment with the complicity of officials. After an initial wave of law enforcement, the government has turned to privatizing parts of the protected area for settlements.

In another document in the same Royal Gazette book, the government also designated 83,050 hectares of zone 2 in Kampong Chhnang as a “buffer zone” for flooded forests.