Land

Land tenure and land titling

Indigenous woman sentenced to jail for encroachment

The Supreme Court has sentenced an indigenous Karen woman to 2 years and 8 months in prison for encroaching on National Park land despite pleas that the piece of land was passed down through her family. Wansao Phungam is an indigenous Karen woman who lives in ...

Prachatai

Cambodia puts its arduous titling process for Indigenous land up for review

Ethnic Kui Indigenous people have for generations mined the mountains and streams of Cambodia’s Romtom commune for their livelihoods. But those traditions shifted as Delcom, a Malaysian-owned gold-mining company, began digging up the land in the early 2010s and confronting artisanal miners with armed guards. ...

Danielle Keeton-Olsen

‘What other country would do this to its people?’ Cambodian land grab victims seek int’l justice

“It started when some people from the government came around the community telling us that we were illegally occupying the land,” Chhae Kimsrour said in June 2020. “I’ve lived here since 1995, but six months later they came back and started filling in my lake. ...

GERALD FLYNN, PHOUNG VANTHA

Thailand’s Indigenous Peoples fight for ‘land of our heart’ (commentary)

On Sept. 3, 2019, the remains of Porlajee “Billy” Rakchongcharoen, a Karen environmental and community rights defender who was disappeared in 2014, were found in an oil drum submerged under the Kaeng Krachan dam suspension bridge in Phetchaburi, Thailand. Billy was last seen by his community while ...

Pirawan Wongnithisathaporn, Thomas Worsdell

OPINION: Allow Myanmar ethnic groups to manage their own land

It is estimated that millions of people from cities across Myanmar are in the streets protesting against the military coup that took place on 1 February. The slogan ‘Free Aung San Suu Kyi’ has drawn out many of those demonstrating. But it is a different demand ...

Stella Naw

Ethnic Groups Demand Input in Myanmar Land Reforms

Development organizations and farming groups from ethnic minority areas have called on the government to postpone land reforms, saying they will crush indigenous people’s rights. After parliament resumes on Feb. 1, it is due to discuss a land law which has been planned since 2019 as ...

NAN LWIN

Ethnic Groups Demand Input in Myanmar Land Reforms

Development organizations and farming groups from ethnic minority areas have called on the government to postpone land reforms, saying they will crush indigenous people’s rights. After parliament resumes on Feb. 1, it is due to discuss a land law which has been planned since 2019 as ...

NAN LWIN

Thai farmers brave bullets, prison for community land titles

Somruedee Bunthonglek has not repaired the bullet holes in the pickup truck her husband was driving when he survived an assassination attempt barely a year after her father was shot dead on the same communal farm in southern Thailand. The grey truck, with about half a ...

Reporting by Rina Chandran @rinachandran; Editing by Zoe Tabary.

Land dispute with Thai firms long resolved, landless families told to submit applications

Oddar Meanchey provincial authorities remain puzzled about the Thai Appeal Court’s recent ruling in favour of more than 700 families who claimed to have been locked in a land dispute with three Thai-owned sugar companies in Samrong town and Chongkal district. Provincial deputy governor Vat Paranin ...

Khorn Savi

Bangkok court admits Cambodia farmers' lawsuit against Thai sugar firm

A Bangkok court on Friday agreed to grant class action status to more than 700 Cambodian families suing a Thai sugar firm for evicting them from their homes, a lawsuit that human rights experts see as a test case for transboundary disputes. The lawsuit against Asia’s ...

Rina Chandran

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