Indigenous peoples in Cambodia have traditionally stewarded — and relied on — millions of hectares of forestland for their sustenance.

Now, these communities are concerned about the long-term viability of their cultures and forest stewardship traditions since Cambodia’s parliament adopted a Code on Environment and Natural Resources, which excludes Indigenous peoples’ input and fails to recognize their rights in forest and natural resource management.

“Without their voices and needs being considered, Indigenous peoples will continue to be victimized on their own land as their rights to access to nontimber forest products and traditional forests and land management have been excluded in the code. If these rights aren’t protected, Indigenous cultures and customs are at risk of disappearing, as their daily livelihoods and cultural practices are strongly intertwined with forests and natural resources,” the author argues.

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Cambodia’s Indigenous peoples have a deep relationship to forests, land and natural resources, which they traditionally manage in their cultural practices and everyday lives. There are 22 distinct Indigenous communities with an estimated 172,980 people, accounting for 1.11% of Cambodia’s total population.

Indigenous peoples are well-known for being forest caretakers and passing down forest care from generation to generation through ancestral heritage. Forests, lands and natural resources are at the very heart of Indigenous culture and spiritual practices.

Even though there are small portions of Indigenous peoples in Cambodia and across the globe, their ways of living have made significant contributions to the protection of forests and maintaining rich biodiversity and ecological systems, which contributes to the lessening of the impact of climate change. As much as 80% of the world’s biodiversity is conserved and cared for by Indigenous peoples worldwide.

In Cambodia, Indigenous peoples are assumed to have traditionally maintained and relied on around 4 million hectares (about 10 million acres) of forestland. However, as of 2025, I personally believe that there will be a major shift in this customary management as economic land concessions continue to be granted to private companies within Indigenous communities.

There is no doubt that Indigenous peoples play an important role in the conservation of forests and natural resources by upholding historical cultural customs and their traditional way of life.

However, Indigenous communities remain concerned about the long-term viability of their culture and forest stewardship, particularly since Cambodia’s parliament has adopted a Code on Environment and Natural Resources that excludes Indigenous peoples’ inputs and fails to recognize their rights in forest and natural resource management.

Adoption of an environmental code and its impact

Cambodia’s economy has grown significantly in the past several decades. This level of economic growth, however, has sparked some concerns among civil society, environmentalists and the public, as it has been accompanied by forest loss and environmental degradation.

In response to these adverse environmental impacts and concerns, and also for better environmental management, Cambodia began a project called Environmental Governance Reform (EGR) in 2013 aimed at improving its protection of the environment and natural resources.

The EGR is primarily funded by the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme, and also receives some funding support from the government of Japan and from USAID. The project focuses on the modernization of the Ministry of Environment, the strengthening of the National Council for Sustainable Development (NCSD), the environmental and natural resources code, and the development of integrated ecosystem mapping.

Through this extensive support of both capital and human resources, Cambodia began drafting a new environmental law in addition to the outdated environmental law that was adopted in 1996, aiming to modernize Cambodian legal systems, improve environmental protection and conservation, and decentralize power to subnational levels for better decision-making.

This new environmental law is also meant to help Cambodia align its environmental goals with Paris Agreement pledges to limit global temperature increases to 2° or preferably 1.5° Celsius (3.6° or 2.7° Fahrenheit), which Cambodia has ratified, encompassing both global environmental development and Cambodia’s development context.

The process of drafting the code took nine years, from 2015 until its adoption in June 2023, and it entered into force in June of this year. It incorporated the laws on environmental and natural resources (1996), protected areas (2008) and forestry (2002), but does not work well in the context of protecting Indigenous peoples’ rights, and prohibits Indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional management of forest, natural resources and land.

Indigenous concerns

Throughout the long process of drafting and adopting this law, Indigenous organizations and communities were not invited to fully participate in providing input about their concerns regarding their rights, culture and traditional livelihoods.

So, as a young Indigenous leader who wished to remain anonymous told me via Telegram, “The process was not really open, and we were given short notice. The consultation process with Indigenous peoples and communities was not fully discussed.” Indigenous peoples were not provided with enough time, space or resources to do the consultation, he further said.

In reaction, Indigenous peoples held a national consensus consultation workshop in order to get input, express concerns and share recommendations from more than 100 Indigenous representatives across the country, which they then submitted to the government for consideration to incorporate in the code. However, this feedback has not been incorporated into the code.

Indigenous peoples in particular have concerns about the way this code is worded, and the key terms that have been left out of the law. The code has excluded terminology that specifically mentioned Indigenous peoples and replaced it with more general terms like “local community.” Indigenous peoples are different and unique from local communities. The term “local community” refers to ordinary residents of a given area, whereas “Indigenous peoples” or “Indigenous communities” are native people who differ in origin, languages, culture, traditional customs and ethnicity from the Khmer majority.

Indigenous peoples also have concerns about the types of activities the new code restricts. In particular, the right to traditional economic activities through traditional foraging and opportunistic picking of nontimber forest products has been restricted and prohibited in forests the government identifies as core zones, conservation zones and sustainable zones in protected areas. Authorities are able to demarcate these aforementioned zones without exercising the U.N.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)-protected free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) with Indigenous communities as they are living in or adjacent to the forest areas.

An example is the handling of the expansion of Virak Chey National Park in Ratanakiri province which has affected Indigenous peoples as the government included their rotational farming land and ancestral forest land without consulting with them. As of January 2025, about 90 Indigenous community members were sued by the provincial Department of Environment at a court in Ratanakiri. These community members have been accused of land encroachment in the protected area, according to the internal data documented and sent to the author by an Indigenous rights activist who prefers to remain unnamed.

Episodes like these have sparked significant concern among Indigenous peoples that this new law has the potential to undermine the rights of Indigenous and native people to traditionally control forests and natural resources, which could lead to the loss of spiritual sites, cultural heritage sites, burial sites and traditional farming practices.

Consultation needed

In light of this fact, the Cambodian government should listen, and pay high attention, to people who lack adequate representation, like Indigenous peoples. Without their voices and needs being considered, Indigenous peoples will continue to be victimized on their own land as their rights to access to nontimber forest products and traditional forests and land management have been excluded in the code. If these rights aren’t protected, Indigenous cultures and customs are at risk of disappearing, as their daily livelihoods and cultural practices are strongly intertwined with forests and natural resources.

There are two practical prospects that the Cambodian government should consider in order to safeguard Indigenous peoples’ cultural practices and ensure these groups can live in prosperity, and not be excluded or left behind.

First, the government should promote effective and meaningful public participation in decision-making processes on policies and laws that are likely to affect them. Public participation is also required by UNDRIP and is the process of directly or indirectly involving those who are likely to be affected by the policy or law, particularly Indigenous peoples who have distinct languages, cultures and customs. This public participation itself must be conducted in good faith, be just and transparent, and engage from the initial process to the final stage in a shared decision-making process.

For example, when the government proposes a new law or policy, the responsible government agency should pursue prior consultation with Indigenous groups through their representatives, at an appropriate time and in their respective local languages, to ensure that they understand the proposed law and policy deeply, and thus are able to convey their comments, feedback, recommendations, concerns and needs effectively.

Second, to provide long-term protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights to land, natural resources and forests, the government should incorporate their rights into the environmental code, which is the cornerstone of natural resources management. The future of Indigenous peoples is inseparable from the management of their ancestral natural resources. This land and forest is their god, their belief system, and the source of their traditional income.

The Philippines’ Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Act of 1997 is one of the best case studies in Southeast Asia that Cambodia’s government should consider as a model. The act is a cornerstone of rights for Indigenous peoples in the Philippines, since it recognizes the rights to ancestral domain, land, culture, decision-making and FPIC. Under a code like this, Indigenous peoples can have a stronger reference to rights protection, which can enable them to pass down traditions generationally, while also protecting ecosystems and biodiversity.

In excluding Indigenous peoples from the language of the code, the Cambodian version has restricted Indigenous peoples’ rights to traditional forest stewardship, subsistence economic activities, and customarily foraged food. Exclusion from laws like this has real consequences for Indigenous communities. Separation from forest stewardship could mean that communities are forced to abandon their languages, cultures and traditional ways of life.

In the absence of revising the code, Indigenous peoples will continue to be victims on their own land, and their cultural practices and traditional livelihoods will continue to be at risk of disintegration.

Rithy Bun belongs to the Tompoun Indigenous community and is a young research fellow at Future Forum Cambodia, an independent public policy think tank. The views are his own and do not reflect the position of his employer.

Banner image: The Indigenous Tompoun community celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day in 2024. Image courtesy of Tompoun Culture.

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