1. Presentation
On
Cambodia Indigenous Customary Tenure Recognition
Presented By: Mrs. Yun Man
Executive Director
Cambodia Indigenous Peoples Organization (C.I.P.O)
Date & Venue: From 15.30-17:00, 21st
June at CWD Hotel, Hanoi
Regional Land Forum
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2. ContentsContents
1. Overall introduction of Cambodia and Indigenous Peoples in
Cambodia
2. Relevant National and International Law on Indigenous
Customary Tenure Recognition
3. CIPO’s organization experience with the communal titling and
the recognition of IP rights
4. Lessons Learned on the key land governance issues and
challenges that are affecting Indigenous peoples groups
5. Conclusion
6. Recommendations

3. Area 181,035 Km²
Population About 13,4
millions
Rural
Population
80%
Capital City Phnom Penh
Administration -23 Province
- 8 Khan
-159
district
-1417 commu
-14073 village
Indigenous Over 1.4 % (24
group, in 15 pr
(190,000 pel) =
600 villages
Overall IntroductionOverall Introduction
• Cambodia is located in Asia on the boarder with Vietnam, Thailand and Laos.
• Cambodia is a multi-ethnic society
• Cambodia has the smallest ethnic minority population in SE Asia.
•

4. National Law & Policy
1. Article 3 of the Cambodian Constitution 1993, which
guarantees all Cambodians the same rights regardless of
race, colour, language and religious belief; and Article
44 recognition the collective ownership;
2. Forestry Law (2002), which recognizes the practice of
shifting cultivations with registered lands and protects
traditional land uses through the community forestry
Management plan;
3. Policy and Sub-Decree on the Registration and Right to
Use of the Land of Indigenous Community in
Cambodia, and National Policy for Development on
Indigenous Peoples;
4. Land Law (2001), which recognizes the rights of
Indigenous communities to collective ownership of
their lands; includes interim measures for the protection
of Indigenous lands until formal land titling is in place;
and recognizes the practice of shifting cultivations.
5. Protected Areas Law (2008), which affirms State
recognition of the secure access to traditional uses, local
customs, beliefs and religions of local communities and
indigenous ethnic minority groups residing within and
adjacent to protected areas (Chapter 6)
1. Ratification of the Convention on
Biological Diversity (1992), which is
an international legally binding treaty;
2. The UN Declaration of the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, which the
government of Cambodia voted in
favour of adopting (UN General
Assembly, 2007)
Relevant National and International Law on Indigenous
Customary Tenure Recognition
International Law
Such provisions on the protection of IP
lands are progressive when compared
with other land laws in the region, and
are intended to reflect the socio-
cultural realities and protect the
territorial integrity of indigenous areas
(2011 Land Law, Article 23)

5. Under the 2001 Land Law
• The lands of indigenous communities include both land currently cultivated and
land reserved for shifting agriculture.
• The 2001 land law also contains important provisions on the protection of IP
lands, which allow for communal land titles rather than individual titles, while
preventing the sale and transfer of indigenous lands.
• The law specifically states that no outside authority may acquire any rights to
lands that belong to indigenous communities and that, in the case of collective
ownership, the land can only be sold or transferred only with the agreement
from the entire community. Once registered with the Ministry of Interior as legal
entities, indigenous communities can apply for registration of collective land
title; and until official issuance of collective land titles, communities are allowed
to continue to manage their community lands in accordance with their traditional
customs.

6. Under-Sub-Decree No.83 on Procedures of Registration of Land of
Indigenous Communities, 24 April 2009.
Detail the procedures the communal land titling (CLT) of
indigenous lands, including steps for boundary
demarcation, surveying, and public display and 5 types of
land entitled for CLT including
1. Residential land,
2. Actual cultivated land,
3. Reserved land for agriculture,
4. Spiritual forest land which is limited to 7 hectares (ha),
5. Burial ground forest land which is limited to 7 hectares.

7. Aim of CLT:
CLT is a key element in identifying a solution to land conflicts in Cambodia, and at
aiming in to preserve and protect indigenous people’s customs, traditions and
natural resources in their communities from inappropriate action, improve land use
and management in a sustainable manner, enhance livelihood development and help
the RGC in land management and prevention of anarchical land abuse.
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CLT procedure can be broken down into four phases which include:
Step (1) Self-identification and IP identity determination by Ministry of Rural
Development (MRD),
Step (2) Indigenous community registration as legal entity by Ministry of Interior (MoI),
Step 2.5: Unofficial Map and Internal Rule development
Step(3) Communal land title application (Filing Application with all existing doc from
step 1to3) and Issuance of Interim Protective Measure by Provincial authority,
Step (4) Collective land titling by Land Department of the Ministry of Land
Management, Urban, Planning and Construction (MLMUPC).

8. • CLTs Started pilot project in Dec 2003 by RGC with support by
various DPs.
• 3 CLT implemented by DPA, NGOs and RTK land department in
2004 and issued title 2011.
• So far the CLT process had been implemented in 169 Communities in
9 provinces out of 600 indigenous communities a cross the country.
• 117 of 169 ICs have received the letter of IPs identity recognition
from MRD, which includes 115 ICs that were registered as legal
entity from MOI and 49 ICs have been submitted the collective land
tittle application at the cadastral office, however only 43 ICs were
accepted by cadastral officer due remaining land conflict and mining;
• 43 of 115 ICs were obtained Interim Protective Measure while 11 of
them obtained collective land title.
Indigenous Customary Tenure Recognition achievement progress

9. CIPO’s organization experience with the communal titling and
the recognition of IP rights

10. CLT Positive Factors
The title is basically a positive asset as the following:
1.Strong legal supporting documents and well recognition by
the government agencies at all level
2.Official protection-Evident based -it serves as a means of
defense
3. ELC and SLC
4. Less land and NRM conflict
Legal
documents
Community satisfy the title
Clear the boundary and land
used demarcation
Clear the boundary and land
used management
Official protection 10

11. CLT Positives Factors
• Positive perception change to improve the livelihood development
based on the market trend
• Livelihood development are improving
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12. Yet, the recognition of indigenous rights remains a struggle in practice. There is a gap between
existing legal and policy framework and models of development carried out by government and
non-government institutions on the ground. This is evidenced by the many problems confronting
indigenous peoples in both titled and untitled communities.
Sample experience from titled indigenous communities
1.Internal Factors
– language barrier
– Lack of leadership and management capacity due to limitation of an
understand the role and responsibility as stated in the communities by law and
internal rule on land used management
– Problems of community land & NRM governance (continuous transgression of
by law and internal rules and other relevant law)
– Limitation of internal capacity to solve the land and forest conflict in using the
internal and external mechanism. For instance lack of an understanding on
how to used the legal doc to enforcement communal land encroachment 12
Lessons Learned on the key land governance issues and challenges that are affecting Indigenous peoples groups

13. Population growth &
Livelihood demand
Land and forestry encroachment
(Reserved land & spirit forest)
Break of solidarity1 13
Health
Problem
Lessons Learned on the key land governance issues and challenges that are affecting Indigenous peoples groups

14.  External Factors
– Land and forest Encroacher from the individuals
– Lack of external capacity mechanism, intervention and law enforcement by the
mandate governments agencies and the court to solve the land and forest
conflict
– Limitation and unclear role of the relevant authority intervention
– Free Market Development Trend and Micro-finance which lead for migration
– Mediating needs to sell and be private land
– Lack of external technical cooperation, and financial support for
strengthening capacity building on land tenure governance security,
livelihood development among the relevant stakeholder after titling, for
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Lessons Learned on the key land governance issues and challenges that are affecting Indigenous peoples groups

15. Overall
Challenges of customary recognition experience from untitled
indigenous communities
• A key issue is indigenous communities have not been able to prevent companies and
powerful people from encroaching on their lands. Moreover, the progress of communal land
titling has been too slow compared to ELC have been granted.
• At the same time, the government, and CSOs do not share common understanding and
position, especially the unity among IPOs over the indigenous communal customary land
tenure
• Conflicting claim between each of the communities and also near by ELC company and
SLC
• There is disagreement between sub-national authorities about who is responsible for taking
action for resolving the conflict
• Government rely on the community itself to solve all the boundary conflict and prepare the
supporting documentation before it will finalize the CLTs application
• The indigenous community without technical and financial support from NGOs and Donors
could not prepare themselves for communal land title application procedure and recognition
• Misinterpretation of the law, policy in over arching national legislation, which lead to
systematic misunderstanding of the importance of traditional culture rights over the land and
natural resource which extend to the highest level of the Cambodia government 15

16. Conclusions
In summary, the CLT has been part of the strategy to prevent the land lose, improve
efficacy of land use and promote land tenure rights for IPC as well as strengthen
community solidarity.
•All visited Communities agreed that the title gave a basic security which they did not
have before.
•All visited Communities agreed that large conflicts with ELCs ceased to exist
Nevertheless, still faced structural challenges that need to be solved and improved,
through joint monitoring and action by relevant stakeholders, for instance
•For communal land security, the community and the committee need to strengthen
their leadership management, especially the role and responsibility to implement the
by-law and the internal rule and other relevant law for land tenure security in an
effective way.
• Title has to be combined with social learning, and economic development - cannot
be a stand-alone
• Law enforcement need to be implementing
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17. Overall Recommendation
• Therefore, there is a strong need for them to enhance
their discussion and analysis so that a common position
can be drawn to collectively demand improvement of
governance of IP communal land.
• In addition, there is a need to review land and natural
resource conflicts inside titled and untitled communities.
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18. Recommendations
• Gov’t
– Strengthening Law enforcement
– Clear and action for intervention mechanism on CLT land conflict
– (Systematic) land conflict resolution with ELCs
• DPs (Development Partners )
– On going allocation of resources to support the cooperation
between IPs /NGOs and relevant authorities to strengthening CLT
– Allocation of resources for improving livelihoods and
infrastructure
• NGOs Partner
– community and land governance has to be back-stopped
– Support for networking of/between Ips
– Support for community development 18

19. Recommendations
• Communities
– Strengthening the implementation of by-law and
internal rule on land use and management (equality of
land used in effective, proper management/ measure
the land distributed)
• Joint Action with stakeholders
– problems of collective management have to be
discussed and solved
– Create a clear joint mechanism to monitor and deal with
communal land title governance & conflict (follow the
existing legal doc)
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20. Vest Lang = Thanks Your Attention
Photo Retrieved from NGOF presentation
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