JAKARTA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Indonesia has cut back its planned transfer of state forests to local communities this year by half - an area twice the size of Los Angeles - because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Bambang Supriyanto, the ministry’s director general of social forestry and environmental partnership, said social distancing measures from March to June had halted the technical work needed on the ground to certify the handover of land.

The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction on Tuesday said 550 officials in inter-ministerial groups are set to implement a land registration plan in Mondulkiri province.

The announcement came at a meeting chaired by Minister Chea Sophara and attended by Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Veng Sakhon, Minister of Environment Say Sam Al, and Mondulkiri provincial governor Svay Sam Eang.

Koh Kong provincial authorities said they would not approve the sale and purchase of land in protected areas without proper paperwork.

They vowed to weed out land corruption following a July 3 Facebook post by Prime Minister Hun Sen calling for the return of land to locals living in protected areas.

In an announcement on Tuesday, officials said land transactions are taking place in protected areas around villages and communes, especially in Botum Sakor, Kiri Sakor and Thma Bang districts.

Concession to extract timber from 148,000 hectares in upper Baram was granted despite repeated objections from local communities.

Main photo: Communities like Long Tungan are working hard to find a way to protect their lands and save some of the most valuable carbon and biodiversity stocks we have left. Photo courtesy of The Borneo Project.

• Lawmakers in Indonesia want to question pulp and paper company PT Arara Abadi about its dispute with an Indigenous community in Sumatra that resulted in a member of the community being jailed on dubious charges.
• The company has held the concession to the land since 1996, but the Sakai Indigenous tribe have lived and farmed there since 1830, and claim ancestral rights to the area.

Main photo: Protesters call in Phnom Penh for government authorities to intervene in land-rights disputes, Jan. 13, 2020 (RFA).

Cambodia’s government is unable to resolve the country’s myriad land disputes because many of them involve senior officials, Minister of Interior Sar Kheng said in a rare acknowledgement Tuesday, as a rights group urged authorities to take action against all perpetrators of illegal land grabs equally.

The Siem Reap provincial Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries called on citizens to stop stealing forest land belonging to the state. It said village, commune and district authorities should cooperate to protect forest land in the province.

Department director Tea Kimsoth told The Post on Monday that forest land managed by the Forestry Administration and residents in Siem Reap spanned over 30,000ha. The forests have an abundance of high-grade Cambodian timber.

Resort operators in Wang Nam Khieo district in Nakhon Ratchasima province, a popular holiday spot where several resorts face charges of encroaching upon public forest land, have welcomed Deputy Agricultural Minister Thamanat Prompow's proposal to let them rent Sor Por Kor land plots.

The operators said the policy will create jobs for local people and help the tourism industry.

While indigenous communities in Cambodia stayed home to stem the Covid-19 outbreak, a Vietnamese rubber firm bulldozed their land. Experts say disputes arising from Cambodia's complicated land management system will be difficult to resolve.

When the indigenous Kreung and Kachok communities locked down their villages in Cambodia’s Ratanakiri province in March to keep safe from the novel coronavirus, no one knew change was afoot in their ancestral forest.

For decades, deforestation in Georgia has been putting the livelihoods of communities at risk. It has not only led to an increase in the impact of natural disasters, but has also deprived communities of clean running water.

This special bulletin wants to pay tribute to the forest communities and peasant families around the world who despite all odds and difficulties due to the Covid-19 pandemic – including the movement restrictions imposed by governments and the corporate and elite profit-seeking abuses -, have still managed to practice solidarity:

A Vietnamese agribusiness company in eastern Cambodia has illegally cleared old-growth forests, wetlands and spiritual sites on land that it pledged to return to indigenous communities. The land move reneges on promises the company, Hoang Anh Gia Lai, made in a mediation process with the World Bank.

New reports from eastern Cambodia say a Vietnamese rubber company has illegally cleared swaths of land in Ratanakiri province belonging to local indigenous communities, in violation of a World Bank-mediated agreement to return the land to local residents.