Resource Use Dynamics and Land-Cover Change in Ang Nhai Village and Phou Phanang National Reserve Forest, Lao PDR

This study integrated aerial photographs from 1952, 1981, and 1998, and a satellite image from 2000 with oral histories and socioeconomic surveys to assess changes in forest and land cover in Ang Nhai village, Laos. The study documents the history of resource use and changes in household access to resources in the village. Three distinctive trends were observed in terms of forest and land cover—forest degradation, deforestation, and regeneration. Project results suggest that land and forest cover change dynamically under different circumstances. The case study also points out that integration into the market economy can induce intensification of unused lowland areas, while removing pressures from upland areas previously used for supplementing agricultural production. In addition, the creation of a national reserve forest to restrict local access and forest use was an ineffective tool for regulating encroachment and logging activities.     

老挝铁矿资源与成矿预测

经资料整理与实地调研:老挝已发现铁矿床(点)42处。重要矿床为万象省(P.Vientiane)万荣(Vangviang)铁矿、川圹省(P.Xiangkhouang)富诺安(Phou.Nhouan)铁矿、万象省(P.Vientiane)帕莱(Pha Lek)铁矿、甘蒙省(P.Khammouan)班农洛(Ban Nonglao)铁矿。重要矿床的矿体呈似层状、脉状产出,矿石质量较好,矿床属接触交代矿床、热液矿床。据地层条件、岩浆岩条件、构造条件、铁矿床(点)的分布情况,老挝划分出琅勃拉邦(Louangphabang)、孟佩(Muang Pek)、桑怒(Xam-Nua)3个成矿预测区。     

Spatial identification by satellite imagery of the crop–fallow rotation cycle in northern Laos

In the mountainous regions of northern Laos, shifting cultivation, or slash-and-burn agriculture, is widely practiced. However, the crop–fallow rotation cycle is becoming shorter owing to forest conservation policies and population pressure, causing loss of productivity that deleteriously affects farmers’ livelihoods in the region. To investigate regional land use conditions, we have developed a method of identifying the crop–fallow rotation cycle from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and Enhanced Thematic Mapper+ (ETM+) data. We assessed the impact of the identified cycle on plant production measured by Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). The study site was an area in Luang Prabang Province. Using eight TM and ETM+ images acquired annually from 1995 to 2003, except for 1998, when cloud-free data were not collected, we classified land use in each year as crop or fallow by the presence of vegetation in the late dry season. Conformity with fallow age determined by field investigation was 69.1%. The cultivation frequency from 1995 to 2002 showed that 77,000 ha (17.3% of the study site) had not been used for cropping during the period, but 41,000 ha (9.2%) had been used every year. Of the study site, 129,000 ha (29.1%) was cultivated one or two times, 83,000 ha (18.7%) was three or four times, and 54,000 ha (12.2%) was five or six times. The NDVI of crops in November did not provide sufficient evidence to prove the assumption that a longer fallow period would result in better crop yields. Instead, the regeneration of fallow vegetation was evidenced by the higher NDVI values after longer fallow. More than 8 years would be needed to reach the same NDVI as forest. From the produced maps indicating fallow age and cultivation frequency, we found that areas with high potential for regeneration decreased as cultivation frequency increased. Areas near rivers were intensively used, and fallow length was accordingly short. Low-potential areas were found in the western basin of the Mekong River. This spatial information can be used to detect areas where biomass productivity is at high risk of deteriorating. Readers should send their comments on this paper to: BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3 months of publication of this issue.     

Environmental justice and REDD+ safeguards in Laos: Lessons from an authoritarian political regime

Balancing agendas for climate mitigation and environmental justice continues to be one of the key challenges in climate change governance mechanisms, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+). In this paper we apply the three-dimensional environmental justice framework as a lens to examine the REDD+ process in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Laos) and the REDD+ social safeguards. We focus particularly on challenges to justice faced by marginalized communities living in forest frontier areas under an authoritarian regime. Drawing on policy analysis and open-ended interviews across different policy levels, we explore procedural, distributional, and recognitional justice across the REDD+ policy levels in Laos. We find that REDD+ social safeguards have been applied by both donors and state actors in ways that facilitate external control. We underscore how authoritarian regime control over civil society and ethnic minority groups thwarts justice. We also highlight how this political culture and lack of inclusiveness are used by donors and project managers to implement their projects with little political debate. Further obstacles to justice relate to limitations inherent in the REDD+ instrument, including tight schedules for dealing with highly sensitive socio-political issues under social safeguards. These findings echo other research but go further in questioning the adequacy of safeguards to promote justice under a nationally driven REDD+. We highlight the importance of recognition and political context, including aspects such as power relations, self-determination and self-governance of traditional or customary structures, in shaping justice outcomes.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13280-021-01618-7.     

The Area Production Model: a tool and concept for sustainable land-use and forest-resource management

In developing countries, planning in the forestry sector has been seen as an appropriate instrument to prepare and implement government policies and programs. Despite its potential and recent advancements in, for example, remote sensing and infrastructure, tropical forest land-use planning is often formal and non-integrated with agriculture. It rarely involves all legitimate stakeholders and neglects taking into account actual land-use. The socio-economic and environmental consequences of these shortcomings emphasise the need for alternative ways of approaching planning. This article summarises the idea, structure and current status of the Area Production Model (APM), originally developed in the 1980s, which is now gaining interest as a land-use planning tool in Africa and Asia. It describes the development over time of production and consumption in agriculture and forestry within a defined geographical area operating under different assumptions on management, land use and socio-economic and macro-economic changes. From a narrow perspective, the APM is a fairly simple computerised tool for generating scenarios. In a broad sense, it is a concept comprising the whole planning process including organisation, inventory, data analysis, consensus building and strategy. A case-study in Laos, based on verified data for a historical period of 45 years, and a review of different APM applications in the world over the last 15 years are presented as a base for conclusions about its potential and shortcomings. In some cases where the APM concept was used in training courses and planning exercises involving stakeholders, it generated a strong interest in collecting and analysing relevant information. It provides the means of addressing a number of shortcomings in current planning.     

中老缅泰交界地区土地利用变化信息挖掘与国别对比

基于Landsat TM/ETM数据,从土地利用空间分布特征、时空变化规律、土地利用程度三个方面,对中老缅泰交界地区1990-2010年土地利用变化特征进行分析。研究表明：① 橡胶园、茶园为增幅最大的土地利用类型,轮歇农地、建设用地、长期性农地也有一定幅度的增加,有林地、灌木林、草地、水域有所减少。② 有林地、灌木林之间的转移及其与长期农地、轮歇农地、橡胶园之间的转移,决定着中老缅泰交界地区土地利用变化特征。中老缅泰交界地区土地利用变化本质上受到市场经济、国家政策、人口迁移、基础设施建设等因素的影响。③ 橡胶园和茶园的时空变化基本表现为面积净值增加,空间位置交换变化非常小。长期农地面积变化不大,但存在较大幅度的空间位置转变;水域、轮歇农地变化以空间位置交换为主。草地、灌木林、有林地、建设用地交换变化和净变化比例相当。④ 1990-2010年,中老缅泰交界地区土地利用程度有所增加,其中,泰国境内土地利用程度最高,老挝和缅甸境内的土地利用程度最低。2000年后中老缅泰交界地区土地利用程度增幅明显加大。其中,中国和缅甸境内土地利用程度后期增幅减小,泰国境内土地利用程度后期增幅变大,老挝境内土地利用程度实现了由前期减少到后期增加的转变。     

Assessment of opium-based farming systems: a case study in the Nahom area,Oudomxay Province in Northern Laos

SUMMARY

An interdisciplinary team of 10 completed an exploratory one-month survey of villages in Nahom, Oudomxay Province, Laos, an area representative of upland farming systems based on opium and shifting cultivation. The study included investigation of the physical and socioeconomic environments and assessment of the farming systems. Due to the relatively low population density, there is enough land for villagers to practice shifting cultivation with a one year cultivation cycle, followed by 10–12 years of fallow. The soil degradation commonly caused by shifting cultivation was not significant in this area and the soil fertility is still relatively high. However, most of the original forests had been cut down and used for shifting cultivation and some degradation of the vegetation has occurred, showing that the ecological sustainability has been threatened by prevailing practices. Thirty-six percent of the households had food supply problems for more than three months of each year. The extremely low return for labour from upland rice cultivation, only 5.64 kg per labour-day, was the critical factor that caused the food shortage. Because of poor technique, rice yield from paddy fields was also low, thus shifting cultivators have no enthusiasm to expand their paddy fields. Income from opium provided 80.5% of household income. Opium was extremely tempting to local people due to the very high return for labour, 5700 kip (US$6) per labour-day, low investment, and good labour availability (mostly during the off-season of rice cultivation). However, opium was also a ‘two-edged sword’. It did not bring real wealth, health and happiness but instead brings poverty, poor health and disappointment.