UN Call to Block Pine Harvest

A U.N. investigator has calls on Cambodia to cancel a 10,000 hectares land grant to a Chinese company (Wuzhishan L.S. Group )for a pine tree plantation.

Saying the company violated indigenous people's rights, Peter Leuprecht (the special representative of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan for human rights in Cambodia) called for a halt on the state land grant in Mondulkiri province - which potentially could lead from a 10,000 hectares promise to 189,999 hectares more.

"The government and the company have disregarded the well-being, culture and livelihoods of the Phnong indigenous people who make up more than half the population of the province, and many breaches of the law and of human rights have been committed," he said in a statement issued in Geneva.

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