Cambodia has temporarily stopped granting land rights to privateers following protests by evicted residents and the killing of a prominent activist investigating illegal logging.
Prime Minister Hun Sen made the announcement on Monday during a UN envoy visit that wanted to look at the "impact on the human rights of local communities" of selling land to private firms.
The decision also comes less than two weeks after Natural Resource Protection Group director Chun Wutty was shot dead by military police - widely believed to have been in the pay of Timbergreen logging firm.
Mr Sen has not said how long the suspension would last but added that licences will be revoked from companies that use their land improperly, such as selling on the land and illegal logging.
Allegations of land-grabbing by big businessmen tied to corrupt officials have plagued land sales and triggered violent clashes when residents were forcefully evicted.
Cambodian human rights organisation Licadho released a report in March which said that Cambodian, Vietnamese and Australian private logging and agricultural firms now control nearly 10 million acres of land in Cambodia - about 22 per cent of the country's total land area.
It said that granting land to privateers was at the centre of chronic land disputes.
In one case earlier this year, private guards shot and wounded at least four people when group of 100 villagers who were trying to stop bulldozers from destroying their cassava plantation.
Licadho president Pung Chhiv Kek called for the government to ensure equity, transparency and fairness in land rights.
He said: "At the moment, it is largely the rural poor who are feeling the brunt of land grabs.
"But it can only be pushed so far before it consumes the society as a whole, which is bad not only for ordinary Cambodians, but also for investors and others who are ostensibly benefiting from land redistribution."
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