On August 6th the Phnom Penh Post reported the following VICTORY:“ In a rare victory for those battling to preserve the Prey Lang forest, the Cambodian government has cancelled four economic land concessions (ELCs) in the area totaling more than 40,000 hectares that threatened pristine ecosystems . . . [the concessions] are located in the middle of evergreen and semi-evergreen forest inside 'the largest low-land [contiguous evergreen] forest in Southeast Asia' – Prey Lang. ”"“ In a rare victory for those battling to preserve Prey Lang forest, the Cambodian government has cancelled four economic land concessions (ELCs) in the area totaling more than 40,000 hectares that threatened pristine ecosystems.The letter dated July 2 declares that four ELCs totalling 40,618 hectares have been cancelled in Kampong Thom’s Sandan district because they are located in the middle of evergreen and semi-evergreen forest inside “the largest low-land [contiguous evergreen] forest in Southeast Asia” – Prey Lang. ”

Cambodia's government, facing growing protests by villagers and warnings about disappearing wilderness, suspended the granting of land to domestic and foreign companies on Monday in a move to curb forced evictions and illegal logging.Rights groups in the impoverished but resource-rich Southeast Asian country said the temporary measure did not go far enough and a permanent ban was needed.The government said in the order, signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen, it would confiscate any concessions that involved the grabbing of villagers' land and illegal logging.

A Special Side-Event Presentation by the Prey Lang Community Network, Indigenous Active Rights Members, Organization to Promote Kuy Culture, and NGO Forum Cambodia.

The UN is expressing concern over the recent killing of Cambodian activist Chut Wutty. According to a spokesman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), “Despite the current lack of clarity about what exactly happened, we are very concerned that the killing of Mr. Wutty marks the latest and most lethal in a series of gun attacks on human rights defenders in Cambodia.”Chut Wutty, the intrepid activist who had been working to protect the forests of Cambodia from illegal logging and to expose government corruption, was shot and killed by Cambodian military police on April 26. He had been out surveying illegal logging sites with two journalists, looking for evidence to bring a lawsuit against the government for aiding the activity, when he was stopped by military police.

Global Campaign to Save the Prey Lang Forest

EarthAction, a global network of over 2,000 organizations in 160 countries, and Cultural Survival, an advocacy organization for Indigenous Peoples’ rights, have begun a worldwide campaign to protect the Prey Lang forest in Cambodia—its people, its trees, its life. The international campaign supports and complements the local efforts of the Prey Lang Community Network, a group of mostly Indigenous people whose villages surround the Prey Lang forest and whose livelihoods depend on the forest’s resources. Prey Lang, about the size of Rhode Island, is the last large primary forest of its kind on the Indochina peninsula.

Global Response, the action program of Cultural Survival, and EarthAction, a global network of over 2,000 organizations, are working together in support of the Prey Lang Community Network to protect and save their forest. On our websites below you can find links to communicate with Cambodian officials to urge them to cancel existing land concessions and create a sustainable management program with the permanent participation of the Prey Lang peoples. We ask your organization to please share this information widely, with other organizations, with your members, and in your newsletters.

Prey Lang issue was selected as the next Cultural Survival/Global Response campaign. Cultural Survival, an organization with a consultative status with the United Nations, has partnered with indigenous communities around the world to help them defend their cultures, lands, and languages for nearly 40 years.