The government will revamp its social land concession scheme – designed to give land to the poor but mired in disputes and deforestation – by launching a new program to reserve land for landless Cambodians and shield it from illegal encroachment, Prime Minister Hun Manet said in a Facebook address on Tuesday.
“Granting land and protecting forests through a sustainable development program isn’t just about settling land for the poor,” Hun Manet said. “It also helps prevent illegal encroachment on state land, boosts public participation, and promotes forest conservation.”
The newly devised program under the decades-old social land concession (SCL) scheme, which allocates state land to landless citizens for residential or farming use, will reportedly grant more land to rural communities, allowing them to help protect and restore it.
Called the Land Distribution Program and Forest Protection for Joint Sustainable Development, the royal decree was drafted in November 2024 and takes effect next month, when it will start accepting applications.
The national committee overseeing the program’s rollout said Jan. 29 it will provide land to 500 families in Stung Treng’s Sesan district. However, It is unclear how much land will be allocated or what qualifications the families must meet.
Stung Treng provincial spokesperson Men Kung said the land transfer would not encroach on protected areas.
“It won’t cut into forest cover or other [economic land] concessions,” he said.
While the new program aims to help the poor, it comes against the backdrop of Cambodia’s long struggle with land seizures, forced evictions, and deforestation.
Amid the fall of the Khmer Rouge and the ensuing civil war, the Cambodian People’s Party recognized private land ownership in 1989 after launching its first agricultural land management effort in 1985. In the early 1990s, the government distributed land to refugees returning from the Thai border. By 2003, it had allocated 1.4 million hectares in SCLs to veterans, security forces, and citizens, particularly along the border. Another 1.2 million hectares were handed out in 2012.
At the same time, economic land concessions let private companies lease vast tracts for commercial purposes – often at the cost of local communities and the forest. Facing backlash over land grabs and forced evictions, then-Prime Minister Hun Sen halted new ELCs in May 2012, warning that firms tied to illegal logging or displacement could lose their concessions. But loopholes remained, and enforcement was lax, with some ELCs still granted or extended and persistent illegal felling of timber, according to reports from rights groups.
Since then, Cambodia has lost vast forest cover, and forced evictions remain systemic. In 2023 alone, the country lost 121,000 hectares of forest. Between 2019 and 2023, at least 22,021 families were affected by land grabbing, while tens of thousands more still await resolution in decade-old disputes, according to local rights group Adhoc
Environment Ministry spokesperson Kvay Atitya declined to comment about the new program.
Cambodian Youth Network president Heng Kimhong welcomed the move to provide land to the poor but urged the government to ensure the program runs smoothly.
He said authorities should reallocate bankrupt and unused economic land concessions (ELCs) to those in need rather than cutting land from protected areas.
“If the government takes land from protected forests, I don’t think that’s a good approach. Those forests should be conserved or restored,” he said.
“The presence of people near protected areas could increase the risk of deforestation, whether through land clearing or tree cutting for personal use,” he added.
Kimhong also urged the government to strengthen forest protection policies and law enforcement.
