Report by the Rural Research & Development Training Center on the impacts of land and forest policies on the livelihood of ethnic minorities. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of how institutional arrangements governing ethnic minorities’ rights to access and control over land and forest impact on their livelihoods, based on a field study in 5 ethnic minority villages in Sekong province, Laos.

Report discusses the labour practices observed and changes in the target communities. It provides detailed summary descriptions of work practices and conditions that are contrasted against key national legal instruments namely the Labour Law. It also identifies a few key emerging developments in the target communities observed in the course of the research. Report was written for Global Association of People and the Environment (GAPE) & Japanese International Volunteer Center (JVC), funded by Oxfam Novib.

This study uses publicly available financial and spatial data to examine the geography of land-intensive investment in Southeast Asia, and to identify the
limits imposed by problems with data availability. It focuses on three regions where land has been widely seen to be available for new investment: Indonesia’s outer islands; the “development triangle” where Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam meet; and the Golden Quadrangle region which comprises the borderlands of northeastern Myanmar, northwestern Laos, southern and western Yunnan, and northern Thailand.

This report draws on the Land Matrix database to analyze and better understand the phenomenon of large-scale agricultural land deals. It focuses on:
» land acquisitions or investments (“deals”) targeting the Global South and Eastern Europe, including only low and middle income countries;
» transnational deals, excluding deals where only domestic actors are involved; and
» deals where the envisioned land use is agricultural.

This article focuses on two cases where companies have sought to develop more socially benign––and, they believe, more profitable and sustainable––plantation concessions in a context that is still marred by extensive land conflict. The first is the Mong Reththy Investment Cambodia Oil Palm (MRICOP) Company (Preah Sihanouk province); the second is the Grandis Timber Company (Kampong Speu province).

This report documents the contemporary ecological, social and economic transformations occurring in one village in Lao PDR’s central Khammouane province under multiple sources of development-induced displacement. Rural development policy in Laos is focused on promoting rapid rural modernisation, to be achieved through foreign direct investments in two key resource sectors: hydropower and plantations. Laos’ land reformprogram is also a key component of the changes underway in the countryside, as swidden (or shifting) upland cultivation is targeted for stabilisation and elimination.

Land in amount of 1418.49 hectares was downsized to grant it for the 82 families who had occupied and used located and to keep as public state land in Tropeang Kea village, Cheung Kor commune, Preynob district, Preah Sihanouk province.

The purpose of this sub-decree is to privatize forest reserve of which size is 594 hectares, and grant social land concessions to military families living in Srekor Commune and Talat commune, Sesan district, Stung Treng province.

The 7100 hectares of land from forest cover 2002 in Ream commune, O'Oknha Heng commune, Toul Totung commune, Andong Thmor commune and Somrong commune of Prey Nob district, and Tumnob Rolork commune of Stung Hao district in Preah Sihanouk province was privatized for social land concession to allocate to former armed forces and their families.

This sub-decree grants the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries the authority to manage 668 hectares of forest reserve and to register it as private state land with the objective of granting social land concessions to military and police families and establishing Techo Bosbov village in Preah Vihear province.

The purpose of this sub-decree is to classify state permanent forest reserve land, of which size is 382 hectares, and grant social land concessions in Preah Pralay commune, Trapeang Prasat district, Oddar Meanchey province.

The 2480.373 hectares of land from forest cover 2002 located in 3 areas in Koh Kong province, including Andoung Teuk commune of Botum Sakor district for 691.14 hectares, Trapeang Rung commune of Koh Kong district 1311.873 hectare, Russei Chrum commune of Thmor Bang district for 477.36 hectares for was privatized for social land concession to allocate to former armed forces and their families.