The Council of Ministers on Friday canceled plans for a titanium mine in Koh Kong province, reversing recent government approval of the project, which would have removed thousands of hectares of dense forest in the southern Cardamom Mountains. Environmentalists and local villagers rejoiced at the decision after months spent campaigning against the mine.
At a meeting of the Council of Ministers, Prime Minister Hun Sen decided against United Khmer Group’s proposal for a mine in Chiphat commune.
“Having expressed concerns about the impact on environment and biodiversity as well as [local] people’s livelihoods, Samdech Hun Sen has announced to not permit the titanium mine investment,” the Council of Ministers said in statement.
Phay Siphan, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers, said yesterday that Mr Hun Sen had called off the mine out of concern for Cambodia’s natural resources and climate change.
“This place will become an environmental preservation area,” Mr Siphan said. Mr Hun Sen “does not permit this mining exploitation to happen, because he wants to participate in fighting global warming.”
“The prime minister thinks about environmental protection, which includes natural and water resources, biodiversity, particularly for those living in Chiphat commune,” he said, adding that all exploration activities had ceased.
Friday’s decision reverses the Cambodian Investment Board’s approval of the project in February and follows months of discussions between environmental group Wildlife Alliance, the company and the government over how beneficial the mine would be.
United Khmer Group—a consortium of Cambodian, Singaporean and Chinese investors—had forecast $3.3 billion in government revenue if the strip mine went ahead, and had already begun exploring its 20,400-hectare concession.
The concession was located in one of the largest evergreen forests in Southeast Asia that is home to more than a quarter of Cambodia’s remaining wild elephants and 24 natural water sources.
Wildlife Alliance welcomed the government’s decision, calling it “a huge reversal.”
“We are elated by the decision of Prime Minister Hun Sen,” the group’s CEO Suwanna Gauntlett said in a statement. “It is incredibly encouraging to see that the prime minister has looked so deeply into this proposed titanium mine and taken the effort to weigh the consequences that this project would have on the rainforest and the local people.”
Wildlife Alliance has previously questioned the firm’s revenue estimates, as no scientific analysis had been conducted in the proposed mining area, which was also the site of a community-based eco-tourism project the group established in 2007.
“[I]t is certain that it would have had disastrous effects on the community of Chiphat and the eco-tourism project,” Wildlife Alliance said, adding however, that a banana plantation planned nearby by an Australian firm posed a new threat to the forest.
Prom Heong, head of Chiphat commune’s community-based eco-tourism committee, said local villagers were gladdened by the government’s decision. “I think the prime minister doesn’t want to lose the Cardamom Mountains’ natural resources. It means he cares about the people’s common interests,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Paul Vrieze)
