Land acquisition by non-local actors and consequences for local development: Impacts of economic land concessions on livelihoods of indigenous communities in Northeastern provinces of Cambodia

The main objectives of this study are to produce an overview of existing information related to land issues and governance of indigenous communities and to assess the impact of economic land concessions on the livelihoods of indigenous communities in the northeast of Cambodia. The study generated the following research questions in order to respond to these objectives: 1. What is happening in terms of land acquisition and land governance practices? 2. What are the consequences for indigenous peoples, in terms of livelihoods as well as agricultural systems and socio-cultural practices? 3. How do land governance regulation and its implementation in practice affect the position of indigenous peoples and what may be done to best support them in attaining equitable and sustainable development? The report is in four main parts. This introduction provides the overall research rationale and objectives. Section 2 presents the research methodology, explaining secondary data reviews and the empirical study designed to collect primary information. The fieldwork entailed a household survey, in-depth interviews and focus group interviews as well as observation. Section 3, the findings and discussion, focuses first on land governance and indigenous communities. This assesses the situation of indigenous people and how communities have changed, using community history analysis based on the fieldwork. It also looks at legal and institutional support for the collective land titling of indigenous communities and economic land concessions in Cambodia. An analysis of the UN Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD) programme related to indigenous communities uses data obtained mostly from desk-based research. The second part of Section 3 is an assessment of the impacts of economic land concessions on indigenous people and communities. A household survey and focus group interviews were used to collect information for this. Interviews focused on how the livelihoods of indigenous families changed when economic land concessions were set up in the community. The paper also highlights the views of respondents from government agencies and civil society. Section 4 of the paper produces conclusions and some recommendations.