This paper discusses how a participatory method to facilitate thinking about future scenarios can help change the way forest communities and local governments interact. It reviews a growing body of literature on future scenarios and shares first-hand experiences in forest communities in the northern Bolivian Amazon and the central provinces of Vietnam. This paper finds that under the right conditions, the use of future scenarios:

This report documents the contemporary ecological, social and economic transformations occurring in one village in Lao PDR’s central Khammouane province under multiple sources of development-induced displacement. Rural development policy in Laos is focused on promoting rapid rural modernisation, to be achieved through foreign direct investments in two key resource sectors: hydropower and plantations. Laos’ land reformprogram is also a key component of the changes underway in the countryside, as swidden (or shifting) upland cultivation is targeted for stabilisation and elimination.