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The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region. It is based on the premise that debates and decisions around land governance can be enhanced by drawing on the considerable volume of research, documented experience and action-based reflection that is available. The online site seeks to organise the combined work of many researchers, practitioners and policy advocates around key themes relevant to the land security, and hence well-being, of smallholders in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The research material on this site is mounted at three levels:
First, a selection of journal articles, reports and other materials is provided and organised thematically to assist researchers, practitioners and policy advocates to draw on one another’s work and hence build up a collective body of knowledge. This is the most “passive” presentation of the research material; our contribution is to find and select the most relevant material and to organise it into key themes. In some cases the entire article is available. In others, for copyright reasons, only an abstract or summary is available and users will need to access documents through the relevant journal or organisation.
Second, a sub-set of the articles has been annotated, with overall commentary on the significance of the article and the research on which it is based, plus commentary relevant to each of the key themes addressed by the article.
Third, the findings and key messages of the annotated articles are synthesised into summaries of each of fourteen key themes. For each key theme, there is a one-page overall summary. Extended summaries are being developed progressively for each theme as part of the Forum's ongoing activity.
Overall, we intend that this online site will contribute toward evidence-based progressive policy reform in the key area of land governance. We further hope that it will thereby contribute toward to the well-being of the rural poor, ethnic minorities and women in particular, who face disadvantage in making a living as a result of insecure land tenure.
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Resources
Displaying 6 - 10 of 564Linking land tenure security with food security: Unpacking farm households’ perceptions and strategies in the rural uplands of Laos
Land tenure, or access and rights to land, is essential to sustain people’s livelihoods. This paper looks at how farm households perceive land tenure (in)security in relation to food (in)security, and how these perceptions evolve throughout different policy periods in Laos. The paper highlights the centrality of farmers’ strategies in configuring the dynamic relationships between tenure (in)security and food (in)security, by demonstrating how farmers’ perceived and de facto land tenure insecurity shapes their decisions to diversify livelihood options to ensure food security.
From boomerangs to minefields and catapults: dynamics of trans-local resistance to land-grabs
This paper explores the political processes that activists engaged in contesting land grabbing have triggered to connect claims across borders and to international institutions, regimes and processes. Through a review of cases of land-grab resistance that have led to project cancelation or suspension, I argue that contextual elements of the land grab and shifting geopolitics highlight the need for adaptation and refinement of models of transnational advocacy, historically structured in North–South patterns.
Land Tenure Security in '70 Percent Forestland Policy' of the Lao PDR
ABSTRACTED FROM CONTEXT SECTION: A study was commissioned by the Mekong Region Land Governance Project (MRLG) to investigate the origins and the implications of implementing the 70 percent forestland policy, and to outline policy considerations. This discussion note aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of the origin, rationale, geography and tenure implications of the 70 percent policies.
Women’s land rights and agrarian change: evidence from indigenous communities in Cambodia
ABSTRACTED FROM EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: This research analyses the ways in which current changes in land tenure, agrarian and socio-economic systems are reshaping resource allocations and transfers within households in indigenous communities in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. While other gendered aspects of the transformations occurring in indigenous societies have received more attention in recent years, the changes occurring in the customary laws that determine land access, ownership and inheritance alongside gender, as well as generational lines, have not been explored.
Land grabs and labour: Vietnamese workers on rubber plantations in southern Laos
Since the early 2000s the Lao government has dramatically increased the number of large-scale land concessions issued for agribusinesses. While studies have documented the social and environmental impacts of land dispossession, the role of Vietnamese labour on these Vietnamese-owned rubber plantations has not previously been investigated. Taking a political ecology approach, we situate this study at the intersection between ‘land grabbing’ studies and work on ‘labour geographies’.