Who gains from saving nature
Ledger 1 : 33 — For each dollar financing nature-based solutions in 2023, about $33 financed activities harmful to nature. (UNEP)
Cases / Carbon credits · Cambodia · 2015–2025

Cambodia REDD+ indigenous consultation failure

Nature's voice · report
No measurement of the harm done to me here is on record.
Did nature suffer? Not measured.
What the record lacks: 2 none on record · 1 insufficient · 1 self-reported only · 1 not measured · 2 disputed · 1 unclear See the gaps

Human Rights Watch reported that Chong Indigenous communities were not consulted for 31 months about the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project in Cambodia, and documented evictions and detentions. Wildlife Alliance denied the abuses.

27 million+Credits issued to the Southern Cardamom REDD+ project
Credits issued, per the project record cited in the sources reviewed; project area about 500,000 ha.

Status As of March 2025: project reinstated by Verra in September 2024; community continued to object; no court ruling on HRW's findings found.

What?
A REDD+ carbon project in the Southern Cardamoms where HRW reported that Chong communities were not consulted for 31 months and faced eviction and detention. Human Rights Watch
Where?
Southern Cardamom Mountains, south-western Cambodia; Thmar Dounpov commune.
When?
Activity from 1 January 2015; HRW report 28 February 2024; Verra suspension June 2023 to reinstatement 10 September 2024. Human Rights Watch
Who?
Gained
  • Project developer and credit holders (credits issued: more than 27 million) — Credit issuance Mongabay
Lost
Harmed
  • Pork Nget and family — Arrest and suspended five-year sentence; brother injured
Why?
Not stated in the sources reviewed beyond the project's REDD+ credit purpose.
How?
Patrols mixing ministry rangers, gendarmes and Wildlife Alliance staff enforced the project boundary, per HRW. Human Rights Watch
6 of 6 questions answered from the record

What happened

The record, in order.

The Southern Cardamom REDD+ project in south-western Cambodia is run by Wildlife Alliance with the Ministry of Environment. It covers about 500,000 hectares and 29 villages, and activity began on 1 January 2015 under three Verra standards. It has been issued more than 27 million credits.

In a 118-page report of 28 February 2024, "Carbon Offsetting's Casualties", Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the Chong Indigenous people were not consulted for more than two years. HRW's account, based on 91 interviews, was that six Chong families were evicted and three people were held for months without trial. It also described beatings with a gun butt in 2018 and 2021. Patrols mixed ministry rangers, gendarmes and Wildlife Alliance staff. Wildlife Alliance denied the abuses.

Verra suspended issuance in June 2023 after a letter from HRW, and reinstated the project on 10 September 2024 with conditions. According to HRW, Verra did not contact any project stakeholders or community members directly. The re-review was carried out by SCS Global Services, Aster Global and AENOR, which had approved the project earlier; Carbon Market Watch complained to the Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market, calling this a clear conflict of interest.

On 27 June 2024, during the suspension, Environment Ministry rangers and Wildlife Alliance staff arrested Chong farmer Pork Nget in the Thmar Dounpov commune, saying his field lay inside the project. He received a five-year prison sentence for encroachment; the sentence was suspended but the charge stands. His family showed land documents issued under a 2013 decree, and the commune administration recognised the field. His brother broke a kneecap fleeing military police and Wildlife Alliance staff in October 2024; police fired a warning shot.

  1. 2015Project activity begins (1 January) in the Southern Cardamom Mountains
  2. 2018First beating with a gun butt documented by HRW
  3. 2021Second beating with a gun butt documented by HRW
  4. 2023Verra suspends credit issuance (June) after HRW letter
  5. 2024HRW report (28 Feb); Pork Nget arrested (27 June); Verra reinstates the project (10 Sep); brother injured fleeing patrol (Oct)
  6. 2025Indigenous community calls out the project as tensions persist (Mongabay, March)

What was said

Claims, in the words of those who made them.

Where accounts differ

Each party's account, side by side, with its source. The record does not settle these points; it shows them.

Were the Chong consulted, and were they evicted and beaten?
Communities and civil society
Human Rights Watch

The Chong were not consulted for more than two years; six families were evicted, three people were held for months without trial, and there were beatings in 2018 and 2021.

Human Rights Watch
Company or project
Wildlife Alliance

Denied the abuses.

Human Rights Watch
Was the 2024 re-review independent?
Communities and civil society
Carbon Market Watch

Complained to ICVCM that the review by auditors who had approved the project was a clear conflict of interest.

Standard-setters and registries
Verra

Reinstated the project on 10 September 2024 with conditions; did not contact stakeholders or community members directly (per HRW).

Mongabay

How it looked

What was shown, beside what was recorded.

Shown

  • Communities overwhelmingly support the project; about $3 million spent on livelihoods in 2023–2024; no law-enforcement authority
    Wildlife Alliance

Recorded

  • Consultation with Chong communities began 31 months after activity started on 1 January 2015.
    Mongabay
  • Six Chong families evicted; three people held for months without trial (HRW).
    Human Rights Watch
  • Verra suspended issuance in June 2023 and reinstated the project on 10 September 2024 with conditions.
    Mongabay
  • Wildlife Alliance had objected to 1,851 hectares measured for inclusion in the commune and in 2015 agreed with officials a map that left this land outside it.

Who gained

Money that reached nature, beside money that stayed elsewhere.

Reached nature or the ground

Not published
No figure published.

Gained elsewhere

Not totalled
Currency: · Window: . All figures cover the same period. * Estimate built from cited figures.

Responses on record

  • Wildlife Alliance (2024): Denied the abuses; said communities overwhelmingly support the project, that it spent about $3 million on livelihoods in 2023–2024 and that it has no law-enforcement authority.
  • Verra (2024): Said it does not carry out field investigations and was unaware of the arrest of Pork Nget.

In court and with insurers

Every proceeding and every insurer decision on record.

Lawsuits and rulings

  1. 2024-06–Outcome not on record
    Prosecution of Pork Nget for encroachment
    Cambodian court (not named in the sources reviewed) · Criminal · Prosecuting authority (not named in the sources reviewed) → Pork Nget

    Arrested 27 June 2024 by ministry rangers and Wildlife Alliance staff; received a five-year prison sentence for encroachment, later suspended; the charge stands.

Insurers

No insurer decision on record.

What nature saw

Outcomes measured on the ground, and nature's note.

Nature's report opens this page. Below: further outcomes measured on the ground.

Credits issued
27 million+
Southern Cardamom REDD+, activity from 1 January 2015
Delay in consulting the Chong
31 months
HRW; Mongabay 2025
Ecological outcome
Not assessed
The sources reviewed concern consultation and rights, not forest cover

What we don't know

Undisclosed, unproven, untried: recorded as data.
No independent ecological evaluationDisplacement reportedUnder standard-setter review

Nature

  • Not measured Harm to nature: No independent ecological evaluation is on record.

Court

  • Unclear Prosecution of Pork Nget for encroachment: outcome not on record.

Figures

Accounts

  • Disputed Were the Chong consulted, and were they evicted and beaten?
  • Disputed Was the 2024 re-review independent?

Record

  • None on record Buyers of the credits: not found in the sources reviewed.
  • None on record Wildlife Alliance denies the abuses HRW reported; no court or independent finding on them is on record.
  • Insufficient Reported but not independently verified: that Conservation International was involved in a REDD+ project in the Cardamoms, that Disney took about 40% of its credits, and that an analysis found it issued about ten times the credits it merited.

Did the harm stop?

Not shown in the sources reviewed: an arrest was reported in June 2024 and Verra reinstated issuance in September 2024.

Who paid?

Chong Indigenous families, per HRW: evictions, detention and loss of access to farmland.

Sources

Voices on record: — Company or project— Government and regulators— Courts✓ Press and investigations✓ Communities and civil society— Researchers

Press and investigations

Communities and civil society

Connected cases

Related matters, and cases linked to this one through the same organisations, with the role each played in both.
Terms used on this page

Carbon and conservation finance

Buffer pool
A reserve of credits held back from sale by a carbon programme to cover future losses, such as forest burned or logged after credits were issued. It works as the programme's own insurance.
Carbon credit
A certificate representing one tonne of carbon dioxide (or equivalent) that a project says it reduced, avoided or removed. Buyers use credits to balance their own emissions in climate claims.
Offset
Using carbon credits to balance emissions released elsewhere, so that a buyer can claim lower or zero net emissions.
REDD+
Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation. A UN framework under which forest projects earn carbon credits for deforestation they say they prevented, measured against a projected baseline.
Standard-setter and registry
An organisation that writes the rules for carbon credits, approves projects, and records when credits are issued and retired. Such bodies typically charge fees per credit.
Voluntary carbon market
Trade in carbon credits bought by choice, mostly by companies, outside legally binding emission schemes.

Science and environment

Hectare (ha)
A unit of area equal to 10,000 square metres, about 2.5 acres. 100 hectares make one square kilometre.
Similar cases
Protected area / relocation · Carbon credits · Nepal · 2000–2026
Nepal community forestry
Same type: Protected area / relocation, Carbon creditsSame regionCourt: outcome not on record
Protected area / relocation · Carbon credits · Spain · 2018–2026
Posidonia oceanica meadows (Balearics, Mediterranean)
Same type: Protected area / relocation, Carbon creditsHarm to nature not measured
Carbon credits · Tree planting · Protected area / relocation · Uganda · 1990–2009
FACE Foundation Mount Elgon carbon forest (Uganda)
Same type: Carbon credits, Protected area / relocationHarm to nature not measured