Battambang and Banteay Meanchey provincial authorities agreed Saturday to clearly demarcate the border between the two provinces to prevent land disputes, Prach Chan, the governor of Battambang, said Tuesday.
The border runs through Banteay Meanchey’s Malai district and Battambang’s Sampov Loun district, a heavily forested area that has been subject to land grabbing.
Battambang wants “to clearly separate our area and to prevent any anarchic land grabbing,” Prach Chan said by telephone.
The provincial border area is important because it runs through Roniem Daun Sam Sanctuary, a 40,021-hectare area of forest, Prach Chan added.
The sanctuary has been the site of much land grabbing, with people logging the area of luxury timber and establishing farms.
There has been confusion in the past about which parts of the sanctuary along the border belong to which province.
Banteay Meanchey Governor Heng Chantha said the provinces established a joint committee to determine which villages belong to which province.
“If we follow the map, some villages are overlapping,” Heng Chantha said. “We have to separate them clearly in order to govern well.”
Police will temporarily control the border area before the land is divided, Heng Chantha said.
Prach Chan said the border between Battambang’s Samlot district and Pailin municipality also needs to be demarcated, because of similar problems.
“We will demarcate the boundary dividing Samlot and Pailin in the future because more people are grabbing land there and cutting trees for their farms,” he said.
Large-scale deforestation to clear farmland in the sanctuary is a major problem, said Chhay Yuob, deputy director of the Ministry of Environment’s environment department.
“We are worried because trees in Roniem Daun Sam are being cut and [loggers] are continuing on a big scale,” Chhay Yuob said. “We do not know how to stop them.”
