Background 

From 2002 to late 2004, the NGO Forum on Cambodia has been working with a network of mostly Cambodian NGOs facilitated and assisted by the project staff of SADP, Oxfam GB, and the NGO Forum on Cambodia.  In part through the NGO Forum Forest Livelihoods Project, a growing network of NGOs has provided assistance to communities living in and near forest concession areas and plantation areas within some of Cambodia’s more valuable forests.

The goal of the assistance has been to increase the ability of local communities to protect their rights and interests with respect to the use and management of forests and land.  Activities undertaken by the network of NGOs have included: village level education on the relevant laws and government policies relating to the forest sector; village, commune, district, province and national meetings of community leaders and NGOs on forestry and plantation issues; and consultations on laws and forest management planning documents to ensure that communities understand the laws and policies that will impact on their rights to access and use forestland.  Additional activities undertaken include educational campaigns to generate support for protecting community access to forest resources, and initiatives to improve access to government and parliamentary institutions and decision makers. 

In January 2005, the capacity building and networking functions of the Forest Livelihoods Project (Component A) were transferred to Oxfam GB.  However, NGO Forum still continues to coordinate national level advocacy on forestry livelihood issues.  In particular, in 2005, the Forest Livelihoods Project successfully requested a World Bank inspection of the World Bank-funded Forest Concession Project and provided comments on an independent review of forest concession management plans.

At the same time, the project has broadened its focus, to respond to the growing number of communities whose livelihoods and access to natural resources are being eroded by the granting of large economic land concessions for the purpose of creating industrial tree plantations.  The project has established an NGO plantation network, bringing concerned NGOs and community representatives working on plantation issues to discuss and advocate their concerns with decision makers.  An NGO working group in Mondulkiri was established to liaise with government authorities and respond to the growing conflict over a large pine tree plantation, exceeding the maximum size permitted in the Land Law, which has taken land from indigenous communities in seven communes, disrupting burial sites, spirit forests, and grazing land.  Representations were made to the government regarding this economic land concession, and a similar large concession in Kompong Chhang and Pursat provinces. 

From 2002 to 2005, the major accomplishments of the forestry project were the establishment of a nation-wide forestry network involving a committed group of Cambodian NGOs and community leaders, with this network receiving increasing visibility both domestically and internationally.  The network has contributed to the maintenance of the ongoing moratorium on logging in concession areas (since January 2002), with this including ensuring livelihood issues are considered in the process of reviewing strategic level forest concession management plans and bringing to light illegal logging activities of concessions.  The forestry network has also played a leading role in raising the profile of forest livelihoods issues shifting the focus of the forest policy reform agenda towards viewing forestry as a human rights issue.  Community forestry committees have been elected in many areas, with community forestry by-laws and regulations drafted and these developments recognized in writing by local government officials in some areas.  The impacts of agro-industrial plantations and associated governance issues have been brought to the attention of government-donor Consultative Group process, and the government has taken some steps, though so far inadequate, to respond to the needs of indigenous communities affected by plantations.