- Indigenous Chorng communities in Cambodia allege continued land restrictions and rights violations by Wildlife Alliance, the U.S.-based NGO running the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project that includes swaths of their farmlands and forest.
- The project was reinstated last September after a 14-month suspension to review the allegations, but concerns persist over unresolved land claims, restricted access to land, and lack of financial transparency.
- Locals have complained of intimidation, threats and economic hardship after losing access to their traditional farmland and struggling to sustain their livelihoods.
- The Cambodian government and Wildlife Alliance have denied the allegations yet continue to benefit from carbon credit sales, even as Indigenous communities are left without sufficient land or decision-making power.
KOH KONG, Cambodia — “[Officially], the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project was suspended for more than a year and then restarted/reinstated recently. But what I actually see here on the ground is that, throughout that period, Wildlife Alliance have continued to restrict us and violate our rights,” said Pon Chhang, a young representative for the Indigenous Chorng community in Koh Kong province’s Thma Bang district.
Sitting in the shade on the banks of a small stream in Chumnoab commune, Chhang, along with several other ethnic Chorng community members, alleged continued abuse at the hands of the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project’s proponents: Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment and New York-headquartered NGO Wildlife Alliance.
Due to wide-ranging allegations of abuse, carbon credit certifying agency Verra on June 19, 2023, suspended the sale of carbon credits from the 465,000-hectare (1.15-million-acre) Southern Cardamom REDD+ project. Human Rights Watch published a 118-page report detailing allegations of physical abuse, threats, violence and a failure to meet best practice standards by Wildlife Alliance and the Ministry of Environment in February 2024.
After 14 months of investigation, Verra reinstated the project on Sept. 10, 2024, and allowed it to once more sell carbon credits on the provision that Wildlife Alliance address the alleged abuses. However, Verra’s review process has come under increased scrutiny.
When Mongabay visited in late October 2024, communities who said they lost land to the REDD+ project maintained that their movements and liberties remain heavily restricted by Wildlife Alliance. The conservation NGO has denied depriving people of access to “legally recognized farmland.”
Chorng community members told Mongabay that the REDD+ project resulted in reduced access to both the forest and their traditional farmland plots, which has left them materially poorer since the project began selling carbon credits in 2018.
“They oppress us by not allowing us to enter the forest,” Chhang told Mongabay. “Our way of life before was sustainable, the Indigenous people harvested nontimber forest products in a way that meant they would remain for generations. When there was no company taking the land, no NGO taking the land, we had no logging, no destruction.”
Long-standing tensions
Wildlife Alliance has long faced allegations that its approach to conservation in Cambodia has been heavy-handed, with multiple reports over the years detailing the NGO’s staff burning down homes and destroying property in a tactic that former staff previously suggested had been encouraged within Wildlife Alliance. Many of the issues reported over the years bore similarities to the allegations laid out in Human Rights Watch’s report.
According to Chhang, rotational farming plots that had been passed down from generation to generation with no formal land title had simply been consumed by the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project with little to no consultation.
“We weren’t told, in the beginning, that our land would be needed for their REDD+ project,” Chhang said. “They still don’t make the maps or boundaries available to us, they didn’t illustrate the maps, they only demarcated the land with help from the government.”
Multiple community members across Chumnoab commune told Mongabay that the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project’s suspension, and Verra’s decision to lift the ban on carbon credit sales, have resulted in few improvements.
Rim Sao Si, a lifelong resident of Chak Russei village in Chumnoab commune, said the entire community is suffering as a result of losing land to the REDD+ project.
“During the suspension of the project, they didn’t allow us to use the land and were even stricter about this, not even allowing us to enter parts of the jungle we had previously been able to access to collect nontimber forest products,” she said.
The Ministry of Environment has not responded to multiple requests for comment on issues affecting REDD+ projects in Cambodia. Suwanna Gauntlett, director of Wildlife Alliance, issued a detailed response to questions posed by Mongabay, saying “We are not aware of anyone who lost access to legally recognized farmland through the participatory land use planning process.”
“[W]e take all grievances raised by community members seriously and follow established feedback and grievance redress mechanism (FGRM) processes,” she said.
Wildlife Alliance has previously pledged to “dedicate its leverage” with local authorities to ensure communities have adequate land to meet their livelihood needs and that traditional land remains accessible to communities as part of its participatory land use process. But the NGO said the authority to settle land claims rests with the government.
Cambodia’s Indigenous communities have long struggled to secure legal land tenure, owing to onerous requirements for communal land titling. As of August 2024, only 43 out of 458 Indigenous communities had received one.
Government accuses documentaries of spreading ‘false information’
When Mongabay interviewed community members in Chumnoab, it was while publicly funded French broadcaster France24 were producing a documentary that featured Mongabay’s work. Since that documentary aired in November 2024, both the Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Alliance have labeled it false, although neither listed any factual inaccuracies or errors.
Similar issues arose after a documentary produced by ABC News highlighted complaints by members of the community living within the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project and the project’s failure to prevent deforestation linked to hydropower development. ABC News released its documentary in September 2024, and it was published on YouTube in December 2024. This prompted a response from the Ministry of Environment which again claimed the documentary was spreading false information. Again, the ministry offered no evidence to support its claims and did not elaborate on which elements it deemed false or inaccurate.
In the wake of these responses to the documentaries, members of the community in Areng Valley and one local reporter have since reported being harassed by Cambodian authorities.
Gauntlett of Wildlife Alliance denied that any of her staff had warned community members in Chumnoab against speaking to the media, but confirmed that during a meeting with Chumnoab community members, the NGO’s staff had “a casual conversation that some people had provided misleading information to journalists, which affected the project.”
She did not identify the information or news reports she alleged were misleading.
When asked about whether members of the community had been warned in any way as a result of the France24 documentary, Gauntlett labeled the questions “very accusatory.”
Human Rights Watch previously reported that Wildlife Alliance worked with local authorities and tracked down an anonymous source at their home after the source had provided information to Human Rights Watch.
While Mongabay has been unable to verify all of the allegations made by members of the community, Chhang said intimidation after speaking out publicly against the REDD+ project has been common.
“When local authorities call a community meeting, they verbally pressure us or issue threats, saying things like, ‘Do not participate, or you will be found guilty’ — this is the truth,” he said. “[Wildlife Alliance] don’t act directly through their organization or staff; instead, they inform the provincial authorities, who then pass instructions to the district level, who in turn directs the commune authorities to threaten community members.
“As a result, the community has become increasingly afraid of them and feels intimidated, this has caused our community to fracture,” Chhang told Mongabay.
‘We don’t have enough rice to eat’
Across the community, Mongabay heard similar complaints: that traditional agricultural lands and practices had been lost to the REDD+ project and that, as a result, many in Chumnoab commune had fallen deeper into poverty with little to no recourse.
Van Bo, a Chorng farmer who has worked the land around Chumnoab since the 1990s, said his family lost a plot of farmland that he had inherited from his mother, but that he wasn’t told it was to become part of the REDD+ project until it was too late.
He recalled how in 2022 his rice field was burnt down after the crops were ready for harvest. According to Bo, Wildlife Alliance rangers razed his farm as it was inside the REDD+ project area.
“There was no warning, no notice. After harvesting my rice, I piled it up here,” he said, pointing to a now overgrown patch of tall grass. “That day, I drove my bike here with my children to collect the rice and bring it home, but I noticed that the Wildlife Alliance rangers were following me so I left the motorbike at the edge of the river, then I escaped to the forest with my children.”
“When we returned, the rice that was piled up had been burnt down, it was destroyed,” Bo said. “The military police, the Ministry of Environment rangers and a foreign man from Wildlife Alliance, they did it. I’m now very desperate, because I can no longer farm, so we don’t have enough rice to eat.”
Bo’s children have all left the village to find jobs elsewhere as there is neither the work nor the rice to sustain them in Chumnoab. Other lands are still accessible for farming, he said, but there is much less of it due to many fellow residents experiencing similar problems.
Mongabay has not been able to independently verify Bo’s account of events, but when Mongabay put questions to Wildlife Alliance, Gauntlett did not address Bo’s specific case.
Gauntlett maintained that Wildlife Alliance is unaware of anyone losing access to legally recognized farmland as a result of the REDD+ project, but said Wildlife Alliance is committed to improving the process for addressing grievances related to land claims so they can be adjudicated transparently, objectively and decisively.
“We welcome a peaceful and fair resolution of any land claim,” Gauntlett added. “But it is important to understand that Wildlife Alliance cannot resolve, influence or decide any land claims.”
Gauntlett reiterated that the NGO consults with communities continuously, but added that Wildlife Alliance has no authority to conduct law enforcement. Enforcement is done by state-appointed law enforcement officers, she said. Cambodia has long been characterized by land disputes following the mass displacement of the population and the destruction of property records at the hands of the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime.
While well-connected individuals have since secured vast land concessions, Indigenous communities struggle to obtain land titles, and REDD+ projects have often failed to secure land tenure for the communities whose traditional lands are absorbed into the projects. The NGOs jointly operating REDD+ projects with the Ministry of Environment have frequently deferred to the government when land disputes have arisen, stating that a remedy is beyond their capacity, while still benefiting from the sale of carbon credits generated on disputed land.
Need for community-led solutions
Back at Bo’s home, his wife Nheuk Choeun, who is also an ethnic Chorng, spoke to Mongabay while she prepared dinner: a bowl of rice and a single egg each.
Choeun said she’s not fundamentally opposed to the conservation of forest, but argued that the level of support to help communities adapt to the changing realities brought about by the REDD+ project should be driven by Indigenous communities rather than foreign NGOs and local government bodies.
“People need nature, but people need to be able to take the benefits provided by the forest and by nature in order to survive,” she said. “We need farmland, but we haven’t had any for two years and now we live in hardship. We benefit much less than Wildlife Alliance, they receive most of the benefits from the REDD+ project.”
When Mongabay questioned Gauntlett about the matter of financial transparency, she declined to share the total amount of money generated by the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project or how much was paid to the Ministry of Environment, marketing firm Everland and credit brokering agent Verra, although she noted that Verra’s fees equated to roughly 12% of gross carbon revenue.
Instead, Gauntlett detailed how the project’s community development and alternative livelihood programs received more than $2 million in 2023, accounting for 36% of the project’s operating expenses. In 2024, the 29 participating communities received just over $1 million, a decrease that Gauntlett attributed to the suspension of carbon credit sales. Public filings show that, as president and chief executive officer, Gauntlett received $244,000 in compensation from Wildlife Alliance in 2023, up from $216,000 in 2022.
Breakdown of communication
Gauntlett said free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) consultations are continuous among communities in the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project.
Between June 4 and Sept. 5, 2024, FPIC meetings found 81% support in Pralay commune; 82% in Chumnoab commune; 88% in Thma Daun Pov commune; and 98% in O’Soam commune, according to Gauntlett.
It’s unclear how many household representatives were present at these meetings or exactly what constituted “support,” but Gauntlett did not respond to questions seeking clarification on what these numbers actually mean.
Human Rights Watch reported that auditors from SCS Global Services reviewing the REDD+ project in 2018 were told by REDD+ project “personnel” that “We therefore assume that a formal consent is not required from communities in the project zone for the validation of the project, as they have no land rights to or within the project area.” Wildlife Alliance later reaffirmed this position in a 2022 letter to Human Rights Watch.
But Chhang said Wildlife Alliance collaborated with local authorities to ensure attendance for an FPIC meeting in July 2020, paying attendees 10,000 riel each (roughly $2.50). Gauntlett did not respond when asked about the alleged payments.
Chhang said he felt the FPIC meetings lacked nuance and served only for Wildlife Alliance and the authorities to secure the consent they needed to continue the project. The REDD+ project proponents, he said, only asked basic questions of the attendees while ignoring questions raised by the community about how the project would affect their lives.
“It was just a simple question: Do you support the REDD+ project? Those who attended were not told about the income of the REDD+ project, the expenses associated with it, or the impact on their communities,” Chhang said. “It’s like they tried to buy our hearts.”
Chhang and others in the community noted that the project had funded water wells and installed solar lights in numerous villages, which were welcome, although Chhang said he would have preferred that the community be able to choose their own priorities for development.
“They didn’t consult with the communities about the needs,” he said. “They only consulted with the commune and district authorities to decide how to spend the money from the REDD+ project.”
Chhang added that basic amenities, such as lights and water, should have been installed by the government rather than an NGO.
Land claims unaddressed
Other community members echoed Chhang’s critiques. Choeun attended two meetings last year, one in Battambang province in August and another in Preah Sihanouk province in October. In both cases, she said she’d initially declined the offer but that the commune chief had made the invitation feel less like an offer and more of an order.
“We were not allowed to speak out during the meeting [in Battambang], we were not told to speak about anything,” she said. “They asked us to attend so that they could [use] our photos.”
The event, organized by the Ministry of Rural Development, was supposed to be a celebration of International Indigenous Peoples Day, but Choeun said she wasn’t told what the meeting was about and assumed it would be an opportunity to voice complaints over the land lost by her community.
The October event in the coastal city of Sihanoukville left Choeun with a similar feeling. Again, there was no official platform for the Chorng communities to raise their concerns; instead, the event was the Cambodia Climate Change Summit, where Choeun said attendees were told how important it was to reduce their plastic use and to plant new trees.
But Choeun did manage to speak to Wildlife Alliance staff. She said she raised the issue of lost agricultural plots and the lack of a designated person the community can approach when issues arise within the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project.
“The commune chief and [Wildlife Alliance] were so happy that we participated [in the events], we rejected the invitation twice before accepting,” Choeun said. “We did not want to join because we worried that they would take our images to use for their REDD+ project; I thought about this carefully, but they still have our pictures.”
Gauntlett told Mongabay she was sorry the event in August felt unproductive for the community and noted that they were both organized by government ministries, not Wildlife Alliance, and that the NGO has recently established a network of focal point volunteers for every community in the project zone to interact between the communities and the REDD+ project proponents.
For Choeun, the community still doesn’t have what it wants most from the project: enough land to survive. And while Wildlife Alliance has repeatedly stated this is an issue that requires government-led intervention, Choeun noted that Wildlife Alliance continues to profit from the REDD+ project.
The money reinvested in the community — roughly $1 million across 29 communities in 2024, according to Gauntlett — is not spent in ways that Choeun and others in Chumnoab commune say they would like to see it spent.
“We are not satisfied because they didn’t [return] the farmland to us,” Choeun said. “They built a groundwater well, which I don’t want to speak badly of, but it doesn’t mean I am satisfied … We do not have rotational farmland [or] communal land. If they continue this project, [Wildlife Alliance] said that we have land for farming, communal land, and they will publicly elect [an Indigenous community representative] for REDD+. We are lacking many things that our commune wanted to have.”
Banner image: Van Bo casts his net in a shallow river, hoping to catch enough fish to survive after he lost his traditional farmlands to the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.
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