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CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

This study aimed to answer the following questions: What are the impacts of the rubber plantations on people’s livelihoods in Tum Ring commune in Cambodia? How can negative impacts be minimized?

36 percent of the Cambodian population lives below the poverty line of income US$0.46-0.63 per day. In order to alleviate poverty, a key element of the government’s policy is to promote agro-industrial crops, such as rubber, cashew nuts, coffee, coconuts, palm oil and others. Rubber is considered as a key commodity, critical to the expansion of Cambodia’s international trade and economic viability. Recently, rubber plantations have been promoted as an industrial and smallholders’ scale enterprise in the country.

1.1 Background

Tum Ring is a small commune located in Sandan district in Kampong Thom province, about 230 km north of Phnom Penh city. The commune is made up of eight villages (Tum Ar, Roneam, Ronteah, Samrong, Sror Lao Srong, Khaos, Leng, and Kbal Demrei), with population of around 2,000 people in 2001. Tum Ring used to have dense valuable forests and a large amount of wild animals. ‘The commune is located in the middle of one of Cambodia’s largest forest areas. The commercial value of this forest is evident in that all land in the commune was under logging concessions granted to three companies; Colexim, Mien Ly Heng and GAT’ (Cock, 2004). Traditionally, the local people were dependent on forest resources, lowland rice and shifting cultivation. People tapped resin trees, hunted and collected other NTFPs such as rattan, vine and wild fruits from the forest. Resin was one of the principle products collected for commercial purposes. Forest resources have provided a major source of income for generations.

In August 2000, the government announced a policy of promoting ‘family scale rubber plantation’. Tum Ring was designated as a suitable area for the development of rubber. In October of that year, Prime Minister Hun Sen gave permission for the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) to excise 4,000–5,000 hectares of red soil land from Tum Ring to give to the state-owned rubber plantation, the Chup company.

In November 2000, a study was conducted by the Kampong Thom Provincial Department of Agriculture. The study justified the benefits of reassigning the forestland to Chup by claiming that the area was degraded to the point of having ‘no trees of commercial value’.

In 2001 the government issued a sub-decree ‘On the withdrawal of red land from the forest concessions for rubber plantations’, and excised red soil areas from the logging concessions, allocating around 4,000 hectares of land to Chup Rubber Plantation Company for industrial-scale rubber plantation. Around 900 hectares were allocated to people occupying the land, and another 900 hectares ‘for the distribution to local people to grow family scale rubber’.

Less than two weeks after the signing of the August 2001 sub-decree, Prime Minister Hun Sen attended the Tum Ring rubber plantation opening ceremony. He claimed that ‘the new plantation would be of benefit to all. Not only was the plantation critical for improving Chup’s future economic efficiency, it was also important for rehabilitating the ecological balance of the region, which was degraded to some extent by logging.’ Moreover, the ‘project would also create jobs and generate revenue for the poor, thereby complementing the government’s efforts to alleviate poverty of our population’. Rubber would replace the ‘meager revenue’ generated from rice, ‘slash-and-burn farming’ and the collection of forest by-products such as vines, rattan, and wood resin.

During the inauguration, Prime Minister Hun Sen provided some recommendations to the Chup company management as well as to officials of MAFF and the General Directorate for Rubber Plantation (GDRP). ‘First, more efforts have to be devoted to develop to rubber plantations in this area in order to promote economic development in our country and help poor farmers to have a better livelihood...My desire is to see Tum Ring becoming a model commune, taking lead in rubber exports…’

The Prime Minister also urged rubber plantation companies based there to give due attention to the development of Tum Ring commune. The Prime Minister said the Tum Ring Rubber Plantation should become a core or a backbone to promote the development of family rubber plantations and cash crop production in the area. With this message, he also stressed that the public should be educated on the importance of forests...eradicate corruption in the forest sector and ensure sustainable forest management.

1.2 Policy Problem

Rubber plantation development in Tum Ring shows the government’s policy on improving local people’s livelihoods has not lived up to expectations. Since the arrival of the rubber plantation, local people’s livelihoods have changed rapidly. Villagers have lost their income sources, their farmland, and faced severe food shortage. Before the rubber plantation was put into development, most of the people did not want their land changed in this way and wanted to keep it as it had been. They observed that if they were to grow rubber, they would have to wait seven years for the trees to grow and produce. As the plantation development started, the forests were cleared, with disregard for the livelihoods of the approximately 2,000 people inhabiting the eight villages in the commune.

Local people had to take risks and to rely on uncertain returns from rubber. The ‘family scale rubber plantation’ project, which encourages villagers to plant rubber, was not implemented satisfactorily. People are not able to afford the costs of rubber plantation development, feel insecure about their rights to their land in the future, and are unsure whether there will be a good market for rubber products. Most of the village people have given up planting rubber and are turning to planting other cash crops which can provide immediate harvests to meet their needs.

These impacts and problems have, however, not been taken into consideration; the rubber company is continuing to clear land for rubber planting in the commune.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

The overall objective of the PAE is to study the impacts of the rubber plantation in Tum Ring. This includes:

 Identifying the impacts of the rubber plantation on the local people.

 Uncovering problems in project implementation.

 Analyzing whether the rubber plantation is economically viable.

Identifying options and recommendations to minimize negative impacts of rubber plantations.

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