Browsing by Author "Fujita, Yayoi"

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3

Augmenting Missing Linkages: Conservation and Community Resource Management in Lao PDR
(2004) Fujita, Yayoi
"Sustainable forest management has been placed at the centre of forest policy in Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (hereafter Laos) since 1989 following the First National Conference on Forestry that addressed increasing forest degradation as a national concern. In the last two decades, forest management authority was organisationally restructured and rapid institutionalisation that followed shaped forest management in Laos. Technical and financial support provided by the international organisations in the early 1990s particularly facilitated reclassification of forest areas based on scientific criteria and delineation of new resource boundaries including national reserve forests for biodiversity conservation. This was accompanied by development of legislative statutes that prescribed forest resource use and management. Together, these efforts distinguished state, community, and private resource tenure over land and forest in Laos. "In the pursuit of improved forest management, the government of Laos recognised customary resource access and encouraged local participation in resource management. This was a unique feature compared to its neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia that had often experienced political upheaval and violent conflicts between state and local communities over access and control of forest resources. While less confrontational, the process of resource boundary delineation and designation of national reserve forests in Laos instigated a new type of resource conflict. Increasing resource scarcity in areas where customary resource boundary overlapped with the new resource boundaries. "The main aim of the current paper is to identify missing links in forest conservation in Laos. While the last two decades was essentially devoted to forge an effective linkage between conservation and development goals by decentralising forest management responsibilities to the local authorities, the efforts have not been satisfying as intra- organisational and intra-village linkages remain weak together with lack of consistency in conservation policy. In the paper, I will review the development of conservation policy and creation of national reserve forests in Laos. In the process I will examine how local forests were incorporated into national reserve forests, and how the new conservation policy affected customary resource use. Furthermore, I will examine community responses to new resource boundary based on a case study conducted in northwest Vientiane and investigate whether decentralised forest management in villages surrounding the national reserve forest had strengthened or disintegrated community control over forest and its resources."
Land and Forest Allocation and Its Implication on Forest Management and Household Livelihoods: Comparison of Case Studies from CBNRM Research in Central Laos
(2004) Fujita, Yayoi; Phanvilay, Khamla
"National University of Laos (NUOL) conducted a research capacity building project on community based natural resource management (CBNRM) between November 1999 and May 2003, funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The project supported three multi- disciplinary case studies conducted in central Laos in Vientiane, by groups of 11 academic faculty at NUOL focusing on the impact of government reform on resource management on local resource tenure. "The current paper reviews a landmark policy on resource management in Lao Peoples Democratic Republic (Lao PDR), the Land and Forest Allocation Policy, which was introduced in the early 1990s as a mean to legitimately recognise customary rights of the local communities to access and use land and forest resources, as well as to management them. The paper will particularly examine the impact of the Land and Forest Allocation Policy on customary resource use practice in three case study sites studied by the NUOL academic faculty. "Comparison of the three case studies elucidates the nature of deconcentration in resource management administration from the central government to the local authorities. Land and Forest Allocation Policy is thus perceived as a state effort to simplify resource boundary and tenure to consolidate its political and fiscal control in remote areas where central government influence had been minimal in the past. The three case studies also indicates the gap between expected goals of the land reform and the varying realities of resource management in the three research sites based on their diverse geographical setting, historical access to resources, and access to market and to agricultural capital. In particular, the study indicates that the reorganisation of space through the Land and Forest Allocation had instigated population displacement of households in the upland communities with little access to productive resources instead of improving their livelihood basis in their villages."
Post-Socialist Land Reform in Lao PDR and its Impact on Community Land and Social Equity
(2006) Fujita, Yayoi; Phengsopha, Kaisone; Vongvisouk, Thoumthone; Thongmanivong, Sithong
"Post-socialist land reform began to take place in Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or Laos) during the mid 1990s, recognizing communal and private rights over lands and decentralizing management responsibilities. These are known as the Land and Forest Allocation (LFA) policy that recognizes both communal and private land use and management rights particularly in rural villages and the Land Titling policy, which provides legal documents for land parcels in urban and peri- urban areas securing long-term land use rights and efficient use of land. "Feudalistic relationship did not develop in Lao PDR prior to the socialist reform which began in 1975. The reform was focused on modernizing agricultural production and attaining food sufficiency. Development of formal institutions on lands only began to surge in the 1990s as the government decided to take a passage towards the market economy in 1986. This also gave a new meaning to land. "Our study takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the effect of post-socialist land reform in rural areas of central Laos where land management policies have been implemented. We incorporate spatial analysis to understand the relations between demographic and resource use change. We also incorporate political ecology approach to understand the land use histories in two communities with diverse ethnic composition, and perspectives of different stakeholders with regards to their meaning of land and how they interpret the government policy. Finally, we examine how the new land policies affect access and use of the commons and consider the impact of current land policies on social equity in two communities."