ABSTRACTED FROM SUMMARY: A bitter land struggle is unfolding in northern Burma’s remote Hugawng Valley. Farmers that have been living for generations in the valley are defying one of the country’s most powerful tycoons as his company establishes massive mono-crop plantations in what happens to be the world’s largest tiger reserve. The Hukawng Valley Tiger Reserve in Kachin State was declared by the Myanmar Government in 2001 with the support of the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE CONCLUSION: The absence of secure tenure and resulting forced evictions represent clear violations of Article 11 of the Covenant with respect to the right to adequate housing by the Cambodian Government. The absence of a comprehensive legislative framework and the failure of other mechanisms to guarantee tenure security, including an independent and effective court system, constitute a failure of the Government to fulfil its Covenant obligations.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION: There is little evidence... that ordinary Cambodians are benefiting from the mass confiscation of their land. On the contrary, those who are displaced are explicitly excluded from any benefits, and instead find themselves facing loss of income, poor health, lack of education and other dire consequences that are directly opposed to the government’s public commitment to development, expressed through targets such as the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDG).

Vietnam has become a hub for processing huge quantities of unlawfully-logged timber from across Indochina, threatening some of the last intact forests in the region, a major new report reveals. Much of the illegally-imported wood is made into furniture for export to consumer markets in Europe and the US.

The overall objective of this Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis (CFSVA) is to analyze the food security and vulnerability conditions of population groups and communities, and to provide baseline information to WFP decision makers.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Since 2010, the granting of economic land concessions (ELCs) in the areas in which Welthungerhilfe runs projects has led to the demarcation, and in some cases the clearing, of indigenous peoples’ farmland and forest. Land and forest are the most valuable resources of the otherwise resource-poor indigenous people in Ratanakiri.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: Since đổi mới, Vietnam witnesses a rapid urbanization and industrialization, which leads to conversions of a large area of agricultural land and other types of land, and this has forced thousands of farmer households to change their traditional livelihoods and even their lives. Using the lens of a sustainable livelihoods framework, this study analyzes and explains the questions of how, in what ways and to what extent agricultural land conversions have been affecting farmer livelihoods in one peri-urban Hanoi village.

The main objectives of this study are to produce an overview of existing information related to land issues and governance of indigenous communities and to assess the impact of economic land concessions on the livelihoods of indigenous communities in the northeast of Cambodia. The study generated the following research questions in order to respond to these objectives: 1. What is happening in terms of land acquisition and land governance practices? 2. What are the consequences for indigenous peoples, in terms of livelihoods as well as agricultural systems and socio-cultural practices? 3.

ABSTRACTED FROM THE INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Housing, land and property rights issues affect men and women differently; hence these issues are not gender-neutral and require a gender equality analysis of the problem. While equal rights between men and women are enshrined in the 1993 Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia (the Constitution) and in a number of national laws, in practice women are still subordinate to men.

Environment and poverty nexus is still a polemical issue. Some schools of thought claim that it is poverty that has the major effect on the environment, while another perspective suggests that the environment has more impact on the poor than vice-versa because the poor have no power to exploit the environment. In the context of Cambodia, there is a general consensus that the poor, particularly those living in rural areas, are heavily dependent on the environment i.e. common property resources.

In recent years the Lao government has provided many foreign investors with large-scale economic land concessions to develop plantations. These concessions have resulted in significant alterations of landscapes and ecological processes, greatly reduced local access to resources through enclosing common areas, and ultimately leading to massive changes in the livelihoods of large numbers of mainly indigenous peoples living near these concessions.

OVERVIEW: Cambodia is a largely agrarian country that emerged from a history of political strife and instability into a period of steady economic growth. However, the country started from such a low base that even after a decade of growth averaging 7% per annum, GDP is only $650. Cambodia is ranked 176th out of 213 countries in terms of purchasing-power parity. Poverty rates have reduced somewhat, but they remain higher than in most countries in the region and are only slightly lower than in Laos.