ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: This paper was originally commissioned by IGES to review the Community Forest Act, 2007 “from a rights perspective” and to assess its impacts (or at least its predicted impacts) on livelihoods. However, the task has been a moving target. While ratification was pending the focus shifted towards assessing the potential impacts of the “Act” on the assumption that it would be passed. Now, as there seems little chance that community forestry legislation will be resurrected in the foreseeable future, the focus has again shifted.

BACK COVER: This book is a case study of Vietnam’s efforts to fight poverty using market-oriented land reforms. In the 1980s and 1990s, the country undertook major institutional reforms, and an impressive reduction in poverty followed. But what role did the reforms play? Did the efficiency gains from reform come at a cost to equity? Were there both winners and losers? Was rising rural landlessness in the wake of reforms a sign of success or failure?

In this paper we address the often sterile and circular debates over relationships between poverty and deforestation. These debates revolve around questions of whether forest loss causes poverty or poverty contributes to forest encroachment, and questions of whether it is loss of access to forests or dependence on forest-based livelihoods that cause poverty. We suggest that a way beyond the impasse is to set such debates within the context of agrarian change.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: In this article, we aim to outline the emergence of territoriality in state power in Thailand, formerly called Siam. In particular, we examine the use of what we call internal territorialization in establishing control over natural resources and the people who use them.

Over the last decade, following the doi moi reforms, the Vietnamese government has formally recognised the household as the basic unit of production and allocated land use rights to households. Under the 1993 Land Law these rights can be transferred, exchanged, leased, inherited, and mortgaged. A land market is emerging in Vietnam but is still constrained for various reasons. Additionally, lack of flexibility of land use is an issue.

The analysis of `ambiguous lands' and the people who inhabit them is most revealing for understanding environmental deterioration in Thailand. `Ambiguous lands' are those which are legally owned by the state, but are used and cultivated by local people. Land with an ambiguous property status attracts many different actors: villagers hungry for unoccupied arable lands in the frontiers; government departments looking for new project sites; and conservation agencies searching for new areas to be protected.

This paper argues that conflicts in the northern Thai highlands are a clear case of the politics of environmental discourse in the sense that conservation has played a role in lending legitimacy to both government agencies and ethnic communities in their struggle for the control of forest resources. Underlying such conflicts is the official line of negative thinking about ethnic minorities in the hills by associating them with various vices, namely as enemies of the forest, opium producers, and a threat to national security.

Anywhere in the world land is the most important natural wealth for the country. The availability of land and its use are a vital part of human existence. Land records, therefore, are of great concern to every country’s government as well as every individual who owns, occupies, uses or has an interest in a parcel of land. In relation to land a person will feel secured or safe with regards to land rights if she has security of tenure and security of tenure is a question of fact.

Sabino Romero y el pueblo yukpa comenzaron a recuperar las tierras que ancestralmente les pertenecía y que fue ocupado por ganaderos, quienes los despojaron de sus tierras.Frente a estas acciones, los ganaderos tomaron represalias en contra los indígenas por lo que muchos murieron en la década del 2000. No fue hasta el asesinato de Sabino que el Gobierno compró las bienhechurías de los hacendados

El territorio weenhayek aún continúa en proceso de saneamiento. De los 197.000 hectáreas demandadas por los indígenas solo se tituló el 30%. En el proceso hubo problemas con ganaderos quienes se apropiaron de parte de lo demandado.Por ese motivo, a modo de proteger y defender su territorio, las familias weenhayek como medida estratégica desdoblaron sus comunidades constituyendo unas nuevas.

Relata cómo a partir de la década de los 2000, los indígenas guaraníes que habitaban Pananti APG, comunidad de Yacuiba, Bolivia, comenzaron a recuperar su identidad cultural y a defender sus derechos a su territorio. Por ello, alrededor de 20 familias guaraníes, principalmente lideradas por mujeres, defendieron sus tierras a través de trámites de titulación de una parte de Pananti.

A região Nordeste do Tocantins, antes de ser polo agrícola do agronegócio, éacima de tudo, uma região de territórios indígenas e comunidades tradicionais. Pois,ainda no século XIX, essas terras foram ocupadas pelos povos indígenas Krahôs edepois por diversas famílias de posseiros e pequenos agricultores de origemnordestina, que encontraram nesse lugar o refrigério.