Over the past decade, the Lao government has developed the policy of ‘Turning Land into Capital’ (TLIC), a strategy for generating revenue and economic value from ‘state land’. The 450 Year Road Project built along the periphery of the Laotian capital, Vientiane, linking the national highway with the Thai border, was financed using a TLIC model.
In Montane Southeast Asia, deforestation and unsuitable combinations of crops and agricultural practices degrade soils at an unprecedented rate. Typically, smallholder farmers gain income from “available” land by replacing fallow or secondary forest by perennial crops. We aimed to understand how these practices increase or reduce soil erosion.
Groundwater recharge remains almost totally unknown across the Mekong River Basin, hindering the evaluation of groundwater potential for irrigation. A regional regression model was developed to map groundwater recharge across the Lower Mekong Basin where agricultural water demand is increasing, especially during the dry season.
ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: The preceding chapters of this book give a central place to the Powers of Exclusion framework for understanding transformations in land relations, as developed in our 2011 book on Southeast Asia. A couple of the main aspects of the two books make for an interesting comparison.
WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: This thematic study presents a country-level overview of customary tenure arrangements in Lao PDR. It examines the extent of customary tenure and land formalization in the country, key policy changes that have impacted on customary arrangements, the degree to which customary land is recognized legally and in practice, and explores opportunities for better recognition.
Forest landscape conflicts can be devastating on many levels – economic, environmental and social, from individual, to subnational, national and global levels. They are symptomatic of many issues revolving around weak governance. The problem is that seldom are they effectively addressed.
Women's empowerment is considered a ‘prerequisite’ to achieving global food security. Gender systems, however, are diverse and complex. The nature and extent of gender inequity and the conditions necessary to empower women vary across countries, communities and regions.
Lao People’s Democratic Republic (PDR) has been experiencing significant forest depletion since the 1980s, but there is little evidence to demonstrate the major causes and underlying drivers for the forest cover changes.
Rubber prices in northern Laos have fallen significantly over the last few years, eroding much of the initial enthusiasm of both farmers and government officials about rubber providing a way out of poverty for poor upland farmers. This thematic study examines responses to this price drop by Lao rubber growers and state institutions in northern Laos.
With more than 60 percent of Asian population either directly or indirectly relying on agriculture for livelihood, agriculture remains key to uplifting lives of many people in the region, as well as to providing sufficient and nutritious food for all.
