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3-4. Toward Community-Based Forest Management:
Working with Local People to Preserve Watershed Forests
in Northern Laos
Forest Preservation Project of an
Advocacy NGO
For most people, the words “forest preservation”
typically conjure up images of forest-plantingactivities. In addition, many projects designed
to protect forests also focus on decreasing local
residents’ dependence on forestry resources byincreasing their income from non-forest relatedactivities. However, whether an initiative is anafforestation or non-forest income-enhancement
project, negative consequences will ensue if theinitiatives are not carried out in a manner respecting
the natural environment and the intimate connection
local livelihoods have with it. When residents inareas surrounded by forests are cast out of theseareas, the connection between people's livelihoods
and natural resources can be severed, sometimes
leading to more destructive resource use and can also
further impoverish local residents.
Top-down land-use policy not aligned with the actual Figure 1: Location of the Project Siteusage practices of residents in the Pak Beng Districtof Oudomxay Province in northern Laos has led to illegal forest use and brought hardships to the livesof residents. This has driven Mekong Watch to conduct activities to bridge the communication gap
between regional government officials and local residents, and to bridge the policy implementation
gap between policy formulated at the central-government level and at the local level. In the process,
Mekong Watch has strived to achieve forest preservation with local residents as the central actors.

Land Use by Upland Farmers
For many residents in the mountainous Pak Beng District, upland shifting rice cultivation provides
the primary means of living. Shifting cultivation is typically conducted in seven to nine year cycles.
After a fallow period, when a secondary forest has recovered to a suitable level, it is cleared, burned,and upland rice is planted. After the harvest, the field is left fallow for several years. After vegetation
returns to a suitable level several years after the harvest, the field will be selected again for farmland.
Each year in Pak Beng District, the village chief, village elders and others gather. Based onexperience, they determine the number of years since an area of land was cleared, examine its soil
quality and the size of trees on it, and decide which parcels of forest are suitable for that year’s crops.
Once the village’s shifting cultivation sites have been decided, the village chief and elders allocate
land to households based on their labor capacity. In this way, the households farm land that they do<3-4>
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not own, with plot suitability and selection being based on the size of trees and soil quality. This land
use system, based on land allocations agreed upon by the village, has historically worked to secure as
stable harvests as possible, and has been flexible in responding to changes in population and land use1.

Problems Caused by Land and Forest Policy
In current-day Laos, various land and forest policies that ignore people’s actual land-use patterns arehaving a significant impact on the lives of upland farmers.
The Lao government has implemented land and forest policies seeking to restrict the practice ofshifting cultivation. Originally concocted with the aims of promoting forest preservation and reducing
poverty, these misguided policies to curb shifting cultivation have not been accompanied by increases
in agricultural productivity or an increase in alternative employment opportunities. Consequently, thecurbing of shifting-cultivation practices has become an end in itself and, conversely, is resulting in
destructive forest use practices and impoverishing local residents.
Apart from this, the government has implemented policies to relocate mountain villages to lowland androadside locations for the purpose of curbing shifting agriculture, to help eradicate drugs, control ethnic
minorities, and improve access to markets and development services. The result has been increasing
concentrations of the population along roads, shortages of farmland and destructive forest use.

Case Study of Pak Beng District:
Promotion of Damaging Forest Management Policies
Even in Pak Beng District, since 1996 the government
has implemented land and forest zoning projects.
The stated goals of these projects are preserving thenatural environment, discouraging shifting cultivation,and promoting cash-crop farming among residents toincrease the income of local people. Project activities
take place such as the redrawing of village boundaries,
allocating new farmland to people, and establishingforest-use zoning within villages.
In one village, much of the land used for shifting
cultivation up until now was designated as a protected forest, leading villagers to suffer from a serious
shortage of farmland. Within the village, people responded in a number of ways. Some rented land
from neighboring villages, while others responded by moving to other villages. However, the rented
land from neighboring villages did not suffice and most households have continued to conduct shiftingcultivation in watershed forest areas. Under these government projects, the lines that have been drawn
designating areas as forest or farmland make people’s traditional agricultural practices “illegal”.
In other villages, land shortages have driven residents to shorten the fallow period to around three
years with some land being farmed in successive seasons. With fallow periods being too short, soil
deterioration is progressing and harvests are decreasing.
Moreover, there are instances in which forests near streams or watershed forests that villagers<3-4>2<Nature and Our Future: The Mekong Basin and Japan>

traditionally protected have been cleared. Making shifting cultivation in entire watershed forests“illegal” effectively erases the meaning people placed on conserving the smaller wooded areas within
the watershed. So now, there are cases of villagers clearing land and engaging in shifting cultivation inareas near watershed forests that traditionally they would have revered.

Toward Community-Based Forest Management: Mekong Watch’s Challenge
As evidenced in the case of Pak Beng District, land and forest policy implemented from the top down
has confused the land use practices of local residents. That said, in light of the rapid expansion being
witnessed in Laos that has included large-scale development, industrial plantations and cash-crop
agriculture, a wholesale rejection of the government’s land and forest zoning efforts and a simple
return to the local residents’ traditional style of land use would not solve the existing problems. To
truly protect villagers’ rights from being infringed upon by outside corporations and development
projects, villagers’ land and forest use rights need to be written into law.

Survey preparing for land and forest demarcation.

A workshop to discuss issues relating to land use invillages.

Since 2005, Mekong Watch has been working in conjunction with Laos National University’sForestry Department to implement a watershed forest management project in Pak Beng District. With
the following goals, the project has undertaken surveys and put forth policy recommendations: 1)
Achieving watershed forest management that reconciles and maintains both forest preservation andthe livelihoods of local residents; 2) creating a mechanism for residents to participate in decisionmaking related to land- and forest-use issues; and 3) ensuring that on-site problems are realisticallyand fairly addressed in central policy measures.
In 2007, as a part of this initiative the Houay Kasaen River Watershed Management Committee wasestablished. It is made up of representatives from eight villages with farmland in the watershed forest
area and District administrative officers. The committee convenes before villagers decide where they
will conduct shifting cultivation and again after harvest. At meetings, plans are formulated for land
use and forest preservation and discussions are held to resolve existing issues. In addition, under thecommittee, a review of land use categories was undertaken with the aim of legally making villagers
the central players in land management and securing farmland required for shifting cultivation cycles,including fallow land. This is being done in villages where actual land use patterns have been ignored
and blind implementation of land use policy has resulted in problems.
The establishment of this committee and the review of land use categories have created a forum for<3-4>
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administrative officials and local residents to work together to resolve land use and forest preservation
issues. This is clearly a significant and notable achievement. However, much work remains,
including heightening local resident understanding and appreciation of forest use rules and watershedmanagement activities as well as reflecting the Pak Beng District experience in policy. To improve
the autonomy and the sustainability of the project, follow-up activities are being undertaken, such asenvironment workshops involving local residents, particularly women. At the same time, activities toshare the Pak Beng District experience with other areas and the central government are also takingplace.
References
Higashi, Satomi. 2006. Village Land and Forest Problems Resulting from Policy Implementation. Forum Mekong Vol. 8 No. 1, 7-10.
http://www.mekongwatch.org/PDF/FM8_1.pdf
Higashi, Satomi. 2009. A Measure for Separating Forests and Agricultural Land: The Lives of Shifting-Cultivation Farmers andAssigning Responsibility for Land and Forest Management. In Mekong Watch (ed.) ’Measure’ Impact on the Lives of Laotian ShiftingCultivation Farmers. Tokyo, Japan: Mekong Watch 29-64 (in Japanese).
http://www.mekongwatch.org/PDF/hakaru_PDF_Full.pdf
Higashi, Satomi. 2010. Forest Policy Causing Deforestation and the Role of “Outsiders”: Case Study of Land and Forest Allocation
Projects in Laos. In M. Ichikawa, F. Ubukata, and D. Naito (eds.) The People of Tropical Asia and Forest Management Systems:
Discussing Governance from the Frontlines. Tokyo, Japan: Jimbun Shoin 66-84(in Japanese).

Satomi Higashi

1. For more information, see BP 2-9 Shifting Cultivation and Upland Life in Northern Laos.

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