7 Indigenous Community Land Titles (ICTs) secured

18 Jun 2022
7 Indigenous Community Land Titles (ICTs) secured

Formal recognition of land rights is a crucial part of supporting communities to protect and maintain areas they have stewarded for generations. These ancestral forests are particularly important to the indigenous Bunong community for spiritual and burial purposes as well as for traditional botanical medicine and sustainable extraction of non-timber forest products. The deforestation frontier that is expanding in the region continues to add pressure to the southern area of the project zone. Without formal recognition of their land, communities are vulnerable to land grabbing and displacement. The project has partnered with the local Bunong community in an effort to formally secure land and resource tenure. So far, the project has helped the communities within the project area to secure seven Indigenous Community Land Titles, including the first one in Cambodia’s history. This effort is ultimately expected to provide land titles for approximately 2,000 Indigenous people within the project area.