Area Reduction Policy

1
Area Reduction Policy

• Chan Rotha
• Cambodia
• Geneva, 5th July 2006

2
Brief History of Mine/UXO Problems

• Chan Rotha
• Cambodian Mine Action Authority
• Geneva, 5th July 2006

• WORLD WAR II
• FRENCH INDOCHINA WARS
• VIETNAM WAR
• 1970 1975 Rebellion against Lon Nol and rise
  of Khmer Rouge.
• 1975 1979 Border incursions into Vietnam by
  Khmer Rouge.
• 1979 1998 Guerrilla war throughout Cambodia
• 1994 1995 Renewed Khmer Rouge offensives

3
Cambodia Area Reduction Policy

• Chan Rotha
• Cambodian Mine Action Authority
• Geneva, 5th July 2006

4

• Result of L1S completed April 2002
• Surveyed 13,908 villages
• 3,000 mine/UXO suspected areas
• 11,400 UXO spots
• More than 5,500 villages have UXO scattered on
  their land
• 4,466 Km2 Mine/UXO suspected areas
• More than 5,000,000 people at risk

5

• Pro
• Useful at the time of its release to appreciate
  the magnitude of contamination, for development
  of long-term strategy and for operators to
  concentrate their clearance efforts on the most
  affected areas
• Con
• Too general definitions
• Too large and poorly defined

6

• Present Situation
• Rapid internal migration has changed the
  settlement and use of land
• Land reclamation by local people and new settlers
  is extremely large
• 4 yrs now since the release of L1S and does not
  reflect the current contamination situation
• The level of land reclamation is already
  substantial and increasing constantly
• L1S data has become out-of-date
• Need to seek a practical and sustainable
  solution to update the contamination database

7
Objective of Area Reduction Policy

• To reclassify the previously mine suspected land
  that have been informally returned to productive
  use in order to update national mine
  contamination database.
• To improve the mine clearance planning by
  targeting clearance on areas posing the greatest
  risk to communities, and by doing so, recognize
  and release land which has been informally
  returned to productive use without evidence of
  threat by recording them in the national mine
  contamination database.

8
Definition of Reclaimed Land

• Is land that was previously classified as
  mine/UXO suspect, but has been returned to
  productive use by locals for a minimum of three
  years without accident
• Is not considered as cleared land but rather
  viewed as land where the threat has been reduced
  to a level that is acceptable to the locals
  (TOLERABLE RISK)

9
Steps to Achieve Aims

• Single data collection form
• Consistent data entry by all operators
• Simple format, same questions asked

10
Challenges

• Combining HALOs Existing Survey
• Combining CMAC Technical Survey Residual
  Areas
• Setting up procedures within CMAA DBU
• Delivery of Data

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• THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTIONS!
• ANY QUESTION OR CLARIFICATION PLEASE FEEL FREE TO
  ASK DURING OPEN DISCUSSION