Land Division from Sub-Decree 80 land area and Botum Sakor National Park not yet complete

• 6 April 2020
• Local News
• 6605 Views

The request for the land division from sub-decree 80 covered land area and the Botum Sakor National Park for residents has not yet reached approval, mentioned by Mr. Chea Sovy, Governor of Koh Kong District, in an interview with Construction and Property Magazine on 3 April 2020.

“The land division is to cut from the Botum Sakor National Park and Sub-Decree 80 on the Creation of the Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary, dated 6 May 2016, to set up the Tatai wildlife sanctuary with 144,275 hectares located in Koh Kong province for the purpose of preserving the wildlife sanctuary and its ecosystem in that area,” emphasized Sovy.

It is not yet clear what number of households and their land size exactly within that requesting land division area. However, according to the governor of Koh Kong district, the purpose of the land is to provide legal residency to people not to conflict with the state’s conservation because many people own their farmland in that conservation zone.

“In the meantime, each district administration has to work with the Koh Kong Administration on clarifying people’s occupying area based on documents related to the sub-decree 80 (Tatai Wildlife Sanctuary) and Botum Sakor National Park and will be used as a basis in consultation with the Ministry of Environment, before submitting to the Royal Government for final approval and issues a new sub-decree” continued Sovy.

With regard to this issue, the Koh Kong district and provincial administrations have already been meeting and discussed five times to reach a common agreement. Based on the legal principle, the meeting decided to set the land divided into four areas: 1) community area 2) sustainable using area 3) conservation area and 4) core area.

While coordinating land ownership activities for this community, it is observed that the government is also busy in a number of development projects around the area. These include the construction of National Road No. 10 (Read More), the Dara Sakor International Airport development project (Read more), and new Koh Kong airport (Read more). Most recently, the Royal Group’s 700-megawatt coal-fired power plant is also projected to be built in the vicinity of this area of Botuma Sakor National Park (Read More) and team up for developing new steel factory (Read More). This evidence now makes it clear about the government’s intentions for developing the province, especially the efforts of local authorities to address social and economic challenges for people on the ground.

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