Five villages in Cambodia were formally issued with Indigenous Land Titles during 2013
The right to communal land titles was provided by the Land Law (2001), but it took years of policy development supported by WCS and other partners to make progress. WCS’s work with communities on land titling started in the Southern Mondulkiri Landscape in 2003, and the village of Andong Kraloeng in the Seima Protection Forest became a national pilot for this approach. Working closely with three ministries, and overcoming many policy hurdles, the country’s first indigenous community land title was issued for this village in 2012. In the following year, there was a culmination of this work. An additional five villages in the Southern Mondulkiri landscape were formally issued with Indigenous Land Titles.
These six villages are leading the way in Cambodia – there are only eight villages in the whole country with indigenous titles.
Indigenous Community Land Titles provide collective, permanent ownership of traditional lands used by an indigenous community. This is a key approach for protecting the rights of these communities to access forest resources and maintain their traditional land use patterns. With a land title, they can protect their ancestral homelands, and better manage and protect forests and natural resources within and around titled areas.
WCS is now working to build capacity within the communities with titles to support the management of their lands and to help them to resist the regular attempts by outsiders to grab land and damage natural resources in the village. The WCS is also working with an additional eight villages in Southern Mondulkiri Landscape to support them to put together a claim for titles to their land.