PUBLISHER'S ABSTRACT: Though Vietnam’s Forest Land Allocation (FLA) policies have been in effect for more than a decade, a systematic assessment of FLA impacts on forest resources and the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities has never been carried out. This report shows that forest land allocated to households tends to be used efficiently in protected areas, whereas land allocated to forest companies generally fails to generate positive outcomes.

ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Qualitative Social and Economic Monitoring of Livelihoods in Myanmar (QSEM) research program provides a descriptive picture of rural life in Myanmar.

PUBLISHER'S ABSTRACT: This report discusses the political, economic and social opportunities and constraints that will influence the design and implementation of REDD+ in Vietnam. In particular, four major direct drivers (land conversion for agriculture; infrastructure development; logging (illegal and legal); forest fire) and three indirect drivers (pressure of population growth and migration; the state's weak forest management capacity; the limited funding available for forest protection) of deforestation and degradation in Vietnam are discussed, along with their implications for REDD+.

OVERVIEW: The Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) is a landlocked country situated in Southeast Asia, bordering Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Myanmar. Despite a recent increase in the rate of urbanization and a relatively small amount of arable land per capita, most people in Lao PDR live in rural areas and work in an agriculture sector dominated by subsistence farming. Lao PDR’s economy relies heavily on its natural resources, with over half the country’s wealth produced by agricultural land, forests, water and hydropower and mineral resources.

OVERVIEW: Thailand is facing the challenges of a transition from lower- to upper-middle-income status. After decades of very rapid growth followed by more modest 5–6% growth after the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98, Thailand achieved a per capita GNI of US $3670 by 2008, reduced its poverty rate to less than 10% and greatly extended coverage of social services. Infant mortality has been cut to only 13 per 1000, and 98% of the population has access to clean water and sanitation.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: This paper addresses the question of land rights and forest conservation for those on the periphery, i.e. the minority hill-dwelling population, specifically, the Karen. Over the past century, the hill-dwelling Karen in Thailand have transformed their subsistence agriculture from that based primarily on swidden cultivation in secondary forests on the lower hill slopes towards wet-rice cultivation in irrigated paddy fields. In either case, the Karen are in a no-win situation.

ABSTRACTED FROM IIED WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: One of the outputs of a research project considering shifting cultivation in Thailand, Lao PDR and Vietnam. It considers the dynamics of shifting cultivation and alternative land use systems in the context of highland development in Thailand, gathered in order to provide up-to-date information to policymakers. The study includes examination of national policies relating to highland areas and the impacts of such policies on local communities and land use patterns.

Recent debates about governance, poverty and environmental sustainability have emphasized a ‘‘rights-based’’ approach, in which equitable development is strongly associated with individual and communal rights. This paper reviews this approach and explores its practical application to Thailand’s ‘‘Community Forestry Bill,’’ which seeks to establish communal rights of access and conservation in forest reserve areas.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: How have national and state governments the world over come to “own” huge expanses of territory under the rubric of “national forest,” “national parks”, or “wastelands”? The two contradictory statements in the above epigraph illustrate that not all colonial administrators agreed that forests should be taken away from local people and “protected” by the state. The assumption of state authority over forests is based on a relatively recent convergence of historical circumstances.

A project in Burkina Faso has given a clear demonstration of what supporting family farms can achieve in terms of poverty alleviation and rural development. One important success factor was the transfer of land to farmers, accompanied by a secure land-tenure policy adapted to their needs.

The demand to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger has been the centrepiece of the Millennium Development Goals; the first MDG stands for the inextricable link between poverty and people’s ability to access safe, nutritious and sufficient food. How will the objective of achieving global food and nutrition security be embedded in the SDGs? Will the SDGs be a further step towards this target?

Meant well doesn’t always mean done well. The Sustainable Development Goals are all set to undermine themselves, Stephan Klasen maintains. The worst aspect is that people, who really ought to be at the focus, threaten to fall by the wayside in this technocratic maze of hundreds of goals, targets, and indicators.