Abstract
The proportional extent of swidden cultivation in Laos is greater than in any other Southeast Asian country. Yet since 1975, the government of Laos has made attempts to eradicate, or at least reduce, swidden cultivation through a village relocation policy predicated upon security concerns , through a “shifting cultivation ” eradication policy, and a land and forest allocation program. Recently, the Land Allocation Programme (LAP), known as the “Three-Plot Policy ,” was introduced across the country. This chapter presents a case study from the Khmu area, northern Laos, where land available for swidden culture was limited by LAP implemented in 2011. The chapter shows how this policy created difficulties for villagers to pursue traditional swidden practice. It presents the crucial role swidden cultivation plays in the livelihoods of the Khmu swidden cultivators and highlights a notable shift from traditional to semicommercialized practices. This chapter clarifies the possible impacts of changes in swidden and argues that any future planning of REDD+ —as the government has attempted to promote it in swidden fallows, requires detailed observation of the role and function of swidden cultivation for livelihood purposes.
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Notes
- 1.
Laos covers an area of approximately 230,000 km2 and is sharing borders with Myanmar and China in the northwest, Vietnam in the east, Cambodia in the south, and Thailand in the west.
- 2.
Cramb et al. (2009, p. 332–333) notes that the conservation initiatives by NGOs and government officials have made a preferential change of the wealthy Tagbanua farmers to intensify swidden agriculture through ecological ethnic groups.
- 3.
Responses of local institutions to the state’s pejorative perception of swidden agriculture has been varied. Some examples of local responses are political movement by NGOs and local people, 99-day demonstration by members of Northern Farmer’s Network, and so on (Cramb et al. 2009: 19–20).
- 4.
Voluminous land use literature covers several case studies dealing with human—environment interactions only at local levels. Only few studies were observed to tackle the issue of linking land cover change to underlying processes at higher spatial scale. Hotspot approach and metadata analysis approach are noteworthy. Landscape mosaic approach reveals the information about the underlying social and environmental processes and hence, humanenvironmental interactions. It should allow not only the integration of land cover inventories with land use processes over larger areas but it should also offer the potential of contributing to the generalization of knowledge, aggregation, and scaling (Messerli et al. 2009 pp. 292–293).
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Acknowledgments
This study is a part of collaborative research between Faculty of Forest Science, National University of Laos and Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies, Kyoto University, focusing on the local use of forest resources in Northern Laos. It was supported financially by Grants-in-Aid from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Government of Japan (21255003, 15K01877). We are grateful to the National University of Laos (NUoL) for their cooperation in conducting this collaborative study in Northern Laos, and to the local people of village S for their support and participation. This study would not have been possible without the support of the District Agriculture and Forestry Office (DAFO) and Provincial Agriculture and Forestry Office (PAFO). Special thanks also go to the final-year students of the Faculty of Forest Science, NUoL, Lao PDR, for their assistance during this study.
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Chan, N., Xayvongsa, L., Takeda, S. (2018). Livelihood Activities of Swiddeners Under the Transition of Swidden Agriculture: A Case Study in a Khmu Village, Northern Laos. In: Lopez, M., Suryomenggolo, J. (eds) Environmental Resources Use and Challenges in Contemporary Southeast Asia. Asia in Transition, vol 7. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8881-0_11
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