Cambodia:
Impacts of pine tree plantations in the Mondolkiri province
Establishment of monocultures
of fast-growing trees to produce so-called fast-wood has accelerated
in Cambodia following the country’s transition to a market-oriented
economy in the early 1990s. Proposed and established plantations
under the development paradigm of ‘economic concessions’ include
fast-woods acacia, pine and eucalyptus. The majority of these
economic concessions violates Cambodian law and there is little
evidence that they create the proposed benefits and income for
the state.
Between September 2004 and
March 2005, the Environment Forum Core Team (EFCT), a group of
volunteer environmental activists conducted field-based research
on four economic concessions in Cambodia. The EFCT is part of
a network of environmentally orientated NGOs established by the
NGO Forum on Cambodia in 1995. Using qualitative and quantitative
methods, the EFCT looked at the likely benefits and disadvantages
of economic concessions on local people’s livelihoods (see full
report at
http://www.ngoforum.org.kh/Land/Docs/Plantation/EFCT%20Plantations%20Report%20FINAL.pdf).
Among the investigated cases
is the fast-growing tree plantation of the Wuzhishan LS Group
in the Mondolkiri province. Wuzhishan was established as a company
in May 2004; in August 2004 the company received permission to
establish a 199,999 hectare pine tree plantation in Sen Monorom
and Ou Reang districts of Mondolkiri province. The concession
boundary also overlaps in part with the ‘Seima Biodiversity Conservation
Area’.
In planning the concession,
there was no consultation with the local communities, and extremely
limited communication with the local authorities. There is no
official publicly available map indicating the extent of the granted
concession. In September 2004, Wuzhishan began operations in earnest,
liberally applying the herbicide glyphosate to areas of the concession’s
grasslands, burning the dead vegetation, and commencing the planting
of 250,000 pine seedlings. In preparing the land for the concession,
Wuzhishan has indiscriminately cleared not only grassland used
by the local Phnong population for cattle grazing, but also spirit
forests and ancestral burial grounds which are essential elements
of the Phnong culture. The use of the herbicide was widely criticized
by the communities: it is believed to have contaminated water
resources, to have affected human health, and to have been responsible
for the death of cattle.
Large protests erupted on 16
June 2005, when between 650 and 800 mostly Phnong people affected
by the plantation protested in front of the company’s office in
Sen Monorom town. This led the Council of Ministers to issue a
Notification on 17 June 2005, ordering Wuzhishan to suspend planting
immediately in all areas of the concession. An inter-ministerial
committee was set up to resolve the problem.
Despite this, in late June,
communities protested the apparent lack of progress and the company’s
continued planting, blockading roads in the concession-affected
communes. The affected communities were subsequently reported
to be subject to numerous threats and intimidation tactics. The
blockades lasted for around a week before the company broke it
with trucks full of workers wielding hoes, knives and sticks.
The results of the investigation
show that almost all households interviewed (98%) were engaged
in agriculture and animal raising as their primary occupation.
65% said that the company’s activities had affected these agricultural
activities, owing mainly to loss of farmland and effects from
the spraying of the herbicide glyphosate. Many woman villagers
reportedly do not now go out to farm because they are afraid company
workers will rape them.
Interviewees reported a significant
decrease in the availability of timber, which was mainly blamed
on Wuzhishan having cleared the forest. The abundance of wildlife
was also noted to have decreased as well as loss of habitat resulting
from Wuzhishan’s activities.
At the time of writing the
report, the precise extent of loss of assets for villagers was
unknown, because the precise boundary of the plantation in the
vicinity of villages remained under negotiation. Despite this,
57% of interviewees said that they would lose some of their farmland.
Large areas of grassland away from the village centers, presently
used by villagers for cattle grazing, are being lost. Natural
forest and fruit trees (growing both in forests and on open grasslands)
that are vital to non-timber forest product collection are being
felled, and tracks used by the Phnong are being obstructed. Furthermore,
animals, fruit and crops are being stolen by the company workers.
Important cultural sites, namely, spirit forests and burial grounds,
have also been destroyed. Legal recognition of land ownership
is complicated by the communal ownership systems practiced by
the indigenous Phnong people.
In total, 21% of the households
interviewed said that they had members working on the plantation.
Each worker worked for eight hours per day, and was paid between
US$30 and US$42.50 per month, with several workers also receiving
25kg of rice per month. UNCOHCHR (UN Cambodia Office of the High
Commissioner for Human Rights) have described working conditions
on the plantation as harsh. Interviewed villagers identified that:
when sick they cannot ask for personal leave; they have to work
hard; they do not get enough salary; they were worried by the
alleged case of rape among the workers; there was pressure on
them to work hard; and the workers stole sheep, dogs and cows
from the villagers to eat. More recent reports (August 2005) indicate
that most employees on the plantation are now migrant workers,
and not local indigenous Phnong people.
The Wuzhishan concession has
had serious negative impacts on the local, mainly indigenous Phnong,
people’s livelihoods, provoking serious protests and necessitating
central-level government to intervene in negotiations for a solution.
A lack of consultation with the local population during the initial
stages of the concession’s development has led to serious mistrust
towards the company and a general feeling that local people’s
concerns are not being adequately addressed. Similarly, local
government departments and the local authorities were not consulted
and have been left on the sidelines in the decision-making process.
Asked how they felt about the company, 11% of the households interviewed
said they did like it because they could get work but 88% said
they did not like it.
Since the report has been published,
affected community people have tried to continue the dialogue
with the government. In October 2005, officials from the Ministry
of Environment conducted an environmental and social impact assessment
in less than two days. The assessment -that has so far not been
publicized- found no environmental impact and blamed the social
impact on unreasonable demands of the villagers. The position
that local communities were too demanding and uneducated to understand
‘development’ has since been reiterated in several meetings of
community representatives and government officials. Recently,
commune councilors from the affected area in Mondulkiri province
have been taken on study tours to the capital and ‘further developed’
provinces to learn from the example. Civil society organizations
were not informed and have been systematically excluded from supporting
the communities. Indigenous Phnong villagers are afraid that the
government will demarcate their community land without paying
any respect to their traditional rights; rights that are clearly
recognized under Cambodian law. Until now the situation remains
unresolved.
Excerpted and adapted from:
“Fast-wood Plantations, Economic Concessions and Local Livelihoods
in Cambodia”, Environment Forum Core Team (EFCT),
http://www.ngoforum.org.kh/Land/Docs/Plantation/EFCT%20Plantations%20Report%20FINAL.pdf;
Information updated by the NGO Forum on Cambodia.
