“We never had difficulties in getting our daily sustenance from the forest and river. We had abundant vegetables, mushrooms, fish, and meat. I also vividly remember how my family and relatives enjoyed community gatherings and traditional events in our old village but unfortunately, everything vanished when the dam submerged our land,” Srang Lanh shared her memories of their life in the Old Kbal Romeas village before the encroachment of Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam project.

More than a decade ago, Srang Lanh alongside members of the Bunong indigenous communities in Kbal Romeas raised multiple concerns on the implementation of the Lower Sesan 2 Hydropower Project – a 400-megawatt dam project funded by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) through its financial intermediary. The Lower Sesan 2 dam is situated below the confluence of the Sesan and Srepok rivers and 25 kilometers from the Mekong River.

The hydropower dam project is owned and operated by Hydropower Lower Sesan 2 Co Ltd., which is a joint venture of a Chinese firm, Hydrolancang International Energy; the Cambodian conglomerate, the Royal Group; and EVN International Joint Stock Company, an affiliate of Vietnam utility company Vietnam Electricity (EVN).

Residents of the affected communities wrote and sent letters to the Cambodian government, project owners, and various investors including Chinese banks asking for dialogues and exploring potential remedies. However, there have yet to be substantial resolutions reached while communities were left groping in the dark.

At the onset of project development and construction, indigenous Bunong communities were never provided with full disclosure of project information. Moreover, there was a lack of genuine community consultations, which was an outright violation of indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) and self-determination. Community members raising concerns about the project’s human and environmental impacts have been met with criminal charges, effectively silencing their voices.

Despite the harm inflicted on indigenous communities, the project developers and financiers remained adamant about flooding the vast territories of Bunong communities and uprooting thousands of indigenous peoples from their land. Bunong communities, whose life and survival are deeply entrenched in the land they cultivate, have to suffer the eventual result of forced eviction.