Okhna owns land at site of illegal Koh Kong mangrove filling, contract shows

Phak Seangly | Publication date 21 February 2018 | 19:00 ICT

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Mangrove saplings poke up from sand that an oknha is accused of pumping into a section of protected mangrove forest in Koh Kong province. Photo Supplied

A section of protected mangrove forest in Koh Kong that was recently discovered to have been filled with sand was illegally sold to tycoon Chea Leanghong in 2017, with local authorities signing off on the deal, according to a sales record.

In March 2017, Sok Kimhong and his wife Siv Chou sold the 13 hectares of land inside Peam Krasaop Wildlife Sanctuary’s community zone to Leanghong, who bears the royally bestowed title of oknha and is the chairman of development and real estate company KH Niron Investment, according to a copy of the sale contract obtained by The Post.

Leanghong has not responded to multiple requests for comment over several days. It’s unknown how Kimhong and Chou initially obtained the land.

The sale was approved by former Stung Veng Village Chief Chhung Thamon and former Stung Veng Commune Chief Khung Vichhean, the document shows. The 13 hecates of land is divided into three different plots, and borders the sea to the south and west.

Koh Kong provincial officials earlier this week said a committee was investigating the illegal filling-in of the flooded mangrove forest, but claimed they still didn’t know who was behind the crime.

Officials first inspected the location in December, where they also found an illegal sand dredging operation to carry out the filling.

Thamon, the village chief, today acknowledged that he signed off the sale contract between Chou and Leanghong, but claimed he thought the area was a crab-raising field, which had been previously sold.

“I did not know that it involved a [protected] community area,” he said. “Before, I didn’t know. If I knew, I would not dare to [sign] it.”

Though he maintained the area did not have flooded mangrove trees, NGOs have claimed that the juvenile trees were actually covered by the sand.

Two of the filled-in hectares are part of a more than 1,000-hectare “community zone” inside the sanctuary, where families can still live and cultivate crops. The community area was established inside the sanctuary under a 2009 sub-decree signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

In 2016, the government ordered that land titles within a more-than 300-hectare swath of filled-in mangrove swamps be annulled in order to protect the ecologically sensitive coastal areas.