Cambodia Cleared 75,000 Hectares of Landmines in Six Months. What That Means for Land Diligence

The Cambodian Mine Action Centre cleared 75,132 hectares of landmine- and unexploded-ordnance-contaminated land in the first half of 2026 — 82 percent of its full-year target, achieved in six months [S-850]. That is a genuinely large number, and it lands almost entirely in the same six provinces this site’s border-property coverage already treats as elevated-risk: Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey, Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Pursat, and Koh Kong [S-850]. For most readers of this site, landmine clearance is background noise. For anyone evaluating rural, agricultural, or border-adjacent land — precisely where Cambodian land is cheapest and least formally documented — it is a due diligence input that deserves its own checklist line, not a footnote.

What CMAC actually reported

The figures, from CMAC’s own July 2026 report covering January–June [S-850]:

• 75,132 hectares cleared, against an annual target that put the six-month figure at 82 percent of the full year’s goal.
• 20,861 explosive remnants of war located and destroyed, plus 4,023 emergency call-outs answered from the public.
• 14,477 mine-risk education sessions, reaching 1,374,887 people — 59 percent of the annual education target.
• Clearance and survey work intensified in six border provinces affected by Thailand’s 2025 military strikes: Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey, Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Pursat, and Koh Kong. Survey teams assessed 335 of the 349 villages affected in those provinces, covering nearly 387,206 hectares.
• That work enabled the safe return of 5,911 households across 1,455 hectares, plus 87 schools (154 hectares), 20 health centres, six pagodas, and 114 other infrastructure projects.
• Nationally, more than 8,400 unexploded ordnance items were destroyed in the period, including 4,436 cluster munitions — the cluster-munition count itself a marker of how much of this year’s work is cleaning up 2025’s conflict rather than only the older Khmer Rouge-era contamination.

The three-decade picture, and why the trend line is real

This isn’t a one-off surge. Since 1992, Cambodia’s mine action programme has mobilised roughly $1 billion, about 30 percent from the Cambodian government and the rest from international donors, the private sector, and philanthropy [S-850]. Over that period the country has cleared more than 3,500 square kilometres of contaminated land, destroyed over 1.2 million landmines, and removed more than 3 million items of unexploded ordnance [S-850]. The National Mine Action Policy 2026–2035 launch in September 2026 put a more precise number on the same three-decade run: 3,541 square kilometres cleared and released since 1992, alongside 1.2 million-plus anti-personnel mines, 26,700 anti-tank mines, and 3.24 million-plus ERW destroyed [S-855]. The human toll has moved with it: annual mine casualties have fallen from more than 4,000 in the 1990s to fewer than 100 a year over the past decade [S-850]. Phnom Penh and 14 provinces have been formally declared mine-free [S-850]. Separately, China’s Lancang-Mekong cooperation project has cleared roughly 190 square kilometres and destroyed some 104,000 mines and ERW since 2018 alone, reaching over 1.4 million rural residents — a concrete, delivered figure worth noting against the more rhetorical China security-cooperation language this site examined in its June 26 Xi–Hun Sen piece. Nationally, of the land released since 1992, roughly 78 percent has gone to agriculture, 5 percent to infrastructure, and 17 percent to community use — which is the closest thing to a direct read on how demining feeds the rural land supply this site’s readers actually transact in.

The part that matters for 2030 — and for underwriting anything long-dated

Cambodia has already had its mine-clearance deadline extended twice; the 22nd Meeting of States Parties to the Anti-Personnel Mine Ban Convention granted a third extension, to December 31, 2030, for anti-personnel mines, with cluster munitions and other ERW pushed to a 2035 horizon under the National Mine Action Policy 2026-2035. Under that policy, roughly 550 square kilometres of known mine-affected land still needs clearing to hit the 2030 milestone — which requires an average clearance rate of about 112 square kilometres a year. Cambodia has averaged about 130 square kilometres a year over the past five years, so the officials running the programme call the 2030 target “within reach” — but explicitly conditional on sustained funding and technical support continuing at current levels. That conditionality is the honest version of the headline: the trend is favourable, not guaranteed, and it is a donor-and-budget-dependent trend, not a fixed schedule.

That 550 square kilometres is the legacy figure — and in September 2026 it was joined by a much larger, separate one. Cambodia formally launched the National Mine Action Policy 2026–2035 in September, with Senior Minister Ly Thuch (CMAA First Vice President) confirming the policy’s 2030/2035 deadlines explicitly encompass the newly impacted border zones hit by Thailand’s 2025 strikes [S-855]. Speaking separately at the Third Review Conference of the Convention on Cluster Munitions in Laos on 13 September, Ly Thuch put the scale of that new contamination at nearly 4,000 square kilometres affected by explosive ordnance, of which roughly 3,000 square kilometres is assessed as cluster-munition affected, on top of 600-plus square kilometres of cluster-affected land still to be addressed [S-856]. That is a different order of magnitude — roughly seven times the 550 sq km legacy figure — and a different source tier: it is a fresh conflict-zone assessment, not the decades-old legacy minefield backlog the “550 sq km” number describes. The two figures answer different questions and should not be added together or substituted for each other; both matter, but for different reasons. (Cambodia is a CCM observer, not a State Party, which shapes how the cluster-munition portion of this is resourced and reported [S-856].) The policy launch also carried a framing shift worth noting: officials say programme performance will increasingly be judged on the socio-economic gains realised on released land, not on hectares cleared alone [S-855] — which reinforces, from the government’s own side, this article’s core caution that “cleared” is not the same as “ready to transact on.”

The Run-4 addendum: the money behind the policy, province by province. The concrete programme sitting behind the September policy launch is a new $3 million, US-funded, three-year initiative with APOPO to clear landmines in Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey and unexploded ordnance in Mondulkiri [S-857] — named provinces, not a general pledge, and framed explicitly around returning contaminated land to productive agricultural, tourism, and economic use. It is a diplomatic-visit readout, not a project plan: no hectare target and no start date beyond “three-year” were disclosed [S-857].

What “cleared” doesn’t tell you

This is where the property angle actually lives, and where enthusiasm about a big clearance number needs a check. Clearance and land-title status are answering two completely different questions, and a strong result on one says nothing about the other:

• “Surveyed” is not “cleared.” CMAC’s own report distinguishes assessing a village (confirming and mapping the extent of contamination) from clearing it (physically removing the hazard). In the six intensified border provinces, survey teams had assessed 335 of 349 affected villages by mid-2026 — meaning 14 villages in exactly the provinces getting the most attention had not yet even reached the survey stage, let alone full clearance.
• A province-level “prioritised” or “intensified” label is not a parcel-level certificate. The 1,455 hectares released for household return and the 154 hectares released for schools in H1 2026 are specific, documented releases. A given plot of agricultural or residential land elsewhere in the same province may or may not be on that list.
• This year’s contamination in these six provinces is partly new, not just historical. Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey, Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Pursat, and Koh Kong are being prioritised because Thailand’s 2025 strikes — which Cambodian officials say involved cluster munitions, chemical smoke munitions, aerial bombardment, and suicide drones — added fresh contamination on top of the country’s older Khmer Rouge-era and civil-war minefields. CMAC Director-General Heng Ratana’s own framing of the clearance effort ties it explicitly to the first anniversary of that attack, not only to the legacy landmine problem this site’s readers may already assume is the whole story. That matters for underwriting: the risk in these six provinces isn’t purely an ordnance-clearance question with a clean 2030 endpoint — it’s layered on top of an active, unresolved border dispute this site has covered in its Thailand border closure piece, where a ceasefire has held since December 27, 2025 but the underlying dispute has not been resolved and land crossings remain shut.
• Clearance doesn’t touch title. A physically demined parcel in a rural border province is exactly the kind of land where soft title, unclear boundaries, and undocumented family or communal claims are already common — the risks this site’s land-title verification guide and due diligence checklist already treat as standard. Demining removes one hazard; it adds no title paperwork.

What to actually verify

For anyone evaluating land in Preah Vihear, Oddar Meanchey, Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Pursat, Koh Kong, or any other historically mine-affected province:

• Ask for the specific CMAC/CMAA clearance or land-release record for the parcel, not a general claim that the district or commune has been cleared. Cambodia’s mine action authorities maintain village- and parcel-level release records precisely because province-wide statements aren’t precise enough to transact on.
• Check whether the parcel falls inside one of the six 2025-conflict- affected provinces, and if so, treat the ordnance-clearance timeline as entangled with the broader border dispute’s trajectory, not as an independent, purely administrative process.
• Never treat clearance as a substitute for title diligence. Run the standard title, boundary, and counterparty checks regardless of clearance status — a demined plot with unresolved title is still an unresolved title.
• For agricultural land specifically, ask what the parcel’s demining and land-release history implies about soil disturbance, remaining sub-surface risk at depth, and any restrictions attached to the release (some released land carries conditions tied to its original resettlement or infrastructure purpose).
• Watch the 2030 target as a funding story, not a fixed date. If donor and government funding for mine action softens, the clearance rate — and the pace at which more border-province land becomes verifiably safe and transactable — softens with it.

The takeaway

Cambodia’s mine action programme is one of the country’s genuine, sustained institutional successes — a three-decade, billion-dollar effort that has cut annual mine casualties by more than 97 percent and cleared over 3,500 square kilometres of land, with 2026 on pace for another strong year. That progress is real and it is gradually unlocking more rural and border-province land for agriculture, housing, and infrastructure. But “cleared” is a specific, documented status that applies parcel by parcel, not a blanket reassurance that a province is now safe to transact in without checking further — and in the six provinces getting the most attention this year, the clearance effort is entangled with an active border dispute, not just a legacy landmine problem. Treat a demining record the way you’d treat any other single line on a due diligence checklist: necessary to verify, and no substitute for the rest of the checklist. None of this is legal advice; verify current clearance and title status with CMAC/CMAA and qualified local counsel before committing capital to land in any historically mine-affected province.

Sources

• [S-850] Khmer Times — CMAC clears 75,000ha of contaminated land — H1 2026 clearance figures; six intensified border provinces; village survey counts; household/school/infrastructure land releases; three-decade programme totals; casualty-rate decline; mine-free province declarations.
• [S-851] Khmer Times — 2030 mine-free goal still within reach, says CMAA — National Mine Action Policy 2026-2035; ~550 sq km remaining to the 2030 milestone; required vs. achieved annual clearance rates; funding conditionality.
• [S-852] AKP — Cambodia Approves New Roadmap to End Landmine Threat by 2030 — 2030 deadline for anti-personnel mines; 2035 horizon for cluster munitions and other explosive remnants of war; six strategic objectives of the national policy.
• [S-853] Construction & Property News — Transforming Conflict Zones Into Fertile Ground: How China and Cambodia Are Building a Safer Shared Future — Lancang-Mekong Landmine Clearance Cooperation Project since 2018 (~190 sq km cleared, ~104,000 ERW destroyed, 1.4M+ beneficiaries); national land-release allocation (78% agriculture, 5% infrastructure, 17% community), 1992–2025 totals.
• [S-854] Khmer Times — Heng Ratana marks first anniversary of attack on Cambodian territory, calls for stronger national unity — CMAC Director-General’s framing of the 2025 Thai strikes (cluster munitions, chemical smoke munitions, aerial bombardment, suicide drones) against Cambodian territory and civilians.
• [S-855] Construction & Property News — Cambodia Launches National Mine Action Policy 2026-2035 to Eradicate Explosive Remnants and Secure Land for Development — policy launch by Senior Minister Ly Thuch (CMAA First Vice President); 2030 deadline for anti-personnel mines, 2035 for cluster munitions/priority ERW areas; 2025 Thai-strike border zones explicitly in scope; consolidated 1992–Dec 2025 totals (3,541 sq km cleared, 1.2M+ anti-personnel mines, 26,700 anti-tank mines, 3.24M+ ERW); shift to judging performance on socio-economic gains from released land rather than km² cleared. Published 14 Sep 2026.
• [S-856] DAP News (English) — mine-action policy coverage — Ly Thuch’s remarks at the Third Review Conference of the Convention on Cluster Munitions (Laos, 13 Sep 2026): the 2025 border conflict left nearly 4,000 sq km affected by explosive ordnance, of which ~3,000 sq km is assessed as cluster-munition affected, plus 600+ sq km of cluster-affected land still to be addressed; Cambodia’s status as a CCM observer, not a State Party. Published 14 Sep 2026.
• [S-857] Khmer Times — US official visits APOPO mine action operations in Siem Reap — US Chargé d’Affaires Aleks Zittle’s visit to APOPO’s Siem Reap operations; a new $3 million, three-year US-funded initiative with APOPO to clear landmines in Preah Vihear and Oddar Meanchey and UXO in Mondulkiri, framed around returning contaminated land to agricultural, tourism, and economic use. Published 14 Sep 2026.