Ratanakiri’s once rich and abundant forests have been decimated as a staggering number of large-scale land concessions have been granted to agribusiness and logging companies, primarily for rubber plantations. Indigenous communities have lost territory and suffered devastating impacts to their livelihoods, cultural practices and way of life as a result.
Chief among the companies that have benefited from these concessions is Vietnamese agribusiness giant Hoang Anh Gia Lai (HAGL), whose subsidiaries received more than 47,000 hectares of land in Cambodia, despite the legal limit of 10,000 hectares per company. Three of HAGL’s wholly-owned subsidiaries were granted more than 20,000 hectares of land in Ratanakiri province for rubber plantations. Much of this land fell within the territories of the region’s Indigenous communities, including Jarai, Tampoun, Kachok and Kreoung villages.