Title:“Enhancing indigenous communities’ capacities to respond to externally-driven
development by helping them analyze its impacts and recognize traditional sustainable
use of natural resources in Laos and Cambodia”
Goals:The Project will first enable local communities to better recognize values of theirtraditional ways of managing natural resources. The Project’s aim is by no means
anti-development but will help communities examine more critically the dominantdiscourse, often pressed on them by outsiders such as international development
agencies and the national government, that they are categorically poor and thus need todevelop.
The Project will also enhance local communities’ capacities to understand and assess
risks relating to externally-motivated development, often large-scale infrastructures,
helping them make decisions in informed and balanced ways and/or better prepared forwhat might occur to them.
By focusing on issues that exist in their immediate living contexts, i.e., naturalresources and livelihoods, and by using audio-visual aids extensively, the Project canoutreach economically poor and socially vulnerable populations, who tend to live inremote rural areas and belong to non-national language speaking, pre-literate,indigenous and minority groups, often women, and help these people acquire theabove-mentioned capacities.
The Project will give local communities opportunities to have their views andconcerns communicated to those who make decisions, affecting their life and livelihoods,very often negative ways, and help such negative impacts lessened, mitigated, andprevented.
These goals of the Project fit well with the goals of the McKnight Foundation in thatfirst of all the Project aims to strengthen local communities’ capacities by providingthem with less-accessible information, critical analysis, concrete means, and more
opportunities. Our aim is also to reduce and/or remove external development threats oncommunities so that they can be more empowered. Second, the main issue that is dealt
with in the Project is natural resources which are critical to livelihoods of people livingin the Mekong Region, especially in Laos and Cambodia. Third, the Project targets atsocially marginalized and vulnerable populations.
Objectives:
O-1. Mekong Watch will help raise indigenous communities’ awareness overimportance of traditional sustainable ways of natural resources management incentral/southern Laos and northeastern Cambodia;
O-2. We will examine impacts of outsider-driven development, including plantations,hydro-powers, and REDD+ strategies, which will cause significant changes incommunities’ use of natural resources. We will help communities build capacities torespond to negative impacts of development; andO-3. We will support communities’ efforts to influence key policies (e.g., domestic
land laws and REDD+ strategies) so that mistakes will not be repeated.
Outcomes:
OC-1. Indigenous communities’ sustainable use of natural resources will be
documented in ways that are accessible and appealing (i.e., video/TV programs) tocommunities and the civil society;OC-2. Impacts on communities’ use of natural resources caused by large-scale
development will be identified and analyzed;
OC-3. Sharing OC-1 and OC-2 with communities will enhance their capacities torecognize values of traditional natural resources management and impacts ofexternally-driven development. Their abilities to propose alternative development
scenarios to policy-makers will also be increased; andOC-4. Communicating OC-3 to policy-makers in Lao, Cambodia, and Japan can help
mitigate problems of specific projects. Safeguard mechanisms can more firmly be basedon communities’ rights and built into domestic laws and international frameworks, e.g.,
REDD+ strategies.
Activities:
Laos:
L-1. Mekong Watch will conduct field research with provincial TV stations, andNon-Profit Associations when feasible, on indigenous communities’ use of land, rivers,and forests in central/southern Laos and record results in video documentaries. We willfocus on communities’ management on Non-Timber Forest Products and fishingactivities;
L-2. We will have discussions with communities to analyze impacts of plantations on
their use of land and forests. Based on such analyses, we will identify anticipatedimpacts of REDD+ projects, including those designed by Japan’s Ohji Paper Company.
Since the Japanese government is financing project formation stages, they may also
give official development assistance (ODA) to these and similar projects;
L-3. Videos produced in L-1 will be broadcast in Laos through TV networks;
L-4. Outcomes of L-1 and L-2 will be presented at participatory workshops in Laos.
Videos will be distributed to participants; andL-5. Results of L-2 will be used to inform national groups, e.g., Land Issues WorkingGroup, line agencies, e.g., the Department of Forestry and National Land Management
Authority, and international institutions, e.g., JICA and GTZ (the German Agency forTechnical Cooperation). Advocacy will also be conducted towards Japan’s private sector

and government agencies to influence REDD+ strategies.
Cambodia:C-1. Mekong Watch will conduct research with indigenous communities andsupporting NGOs, e.g., the Sesan-Sekong-Srepok (3S) Protection Network, on their useof natural resources in northeastern Cambodia and record results in documentaries. Wewill focus on communities’ management on forests and fishing activities and on theirefforts to preserve indigenous cultures in tandem with biological diversities;
C-2. We will have discussions with communities and NGOs to examine impacts ofhydro-powers on traditional land and forest use; andC-3. Outcomes of C-1 and C-2 will be presented at participatory workshops inCambodia. Videos will be distributed to participants. We will also hold meetings toenhance community leaders’ capacities to respond to impacts of externally-motivateddevelopment.
Other activities (for which funds have already been secured):
Results obtained through all the activities proposed above will be formed into a set of
lessons and recommendations and presented at an international workshop on
sustainable natural resources use in Mekong. Community representatives, NGOs,
journalists, and academics will be invited from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam,and Japan to attend. Meeting outcomes will be proposed as people’s critique of theGreen Mekong Initiative, an idea recently advanced by the Japanese government, as
well as people’s alternatives to preserve Mekong’s rich natural resources. Results canalso be used as a tool to conduct advocacy to improve overall development anddevelopment assistance policies, natural resources management procedures, and key
international frameworks, e.g., REDD+ strategies in the Mekong Region.
End