Since 2020, at least five companies have been granted mining concessions in an land designated as a community protected area adjoining Cambodia’s Lumphat Wildlife Sanctuary.
Satellite analysis and on-the-ground reporting reveal that marble extraction has been underway since 2021, with companies piling up and shipping out thousands of blocks of marble, leaving behind cleared forests and water-filled pits.
Government officials and mining companies did not respond to interview requests, but local residents and community chiefs say they have not been consulted, or been given adequate compensation, as quarries tore through land in the community zone.
Lumphat sanctuary is also under pressure from industrial agriculture and a planned hydropower development.
