This paper presents an analysis of an environmental conflict that arose in a Thai industrial zone. The authors analyse state policies to resolve the conflict, and draw lessons for other industrializing nations adopting industrial zone models. The study revealed that a root cause of the conflict was violation of land-use planning regulations and expansion of the industrial zone into community areas. Through legal action, civil society successfully forced the state and industries to halt unplanned expansion.

In recent years the government of Laos 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 have ultimately led to massive changes in the livelihoods of large numbers of mainly indigenous peoples living near these concessions.

This book, essentially an “anarchist history,” is the first-ever examination of the huge literature on state-making whose author evaluates why people would deliberately and reactively remain stateless. Among the strategies employed by the people of Zomia to remain stateless are physical dispersion in rugged terrain; agricultural practices that enhance mobility; pliable ethnic identities; devotion to prophetic, millenarian leaders; and maintenance of a largely oral culture that allows them to reinvent their histories and genealogies as they move between and around states.

This paper describes the interventions undertaken in the Doe Mao Salong watershed in an effort to restore the landscape and improve the livelihoods of local communities. Interventions included forming multi-stakeholder platforms to facilitate dialogue and to ensure participatory land-use planning; the creation of tree nurseries for forest rehabilitation; identifying products for sale in local markets; and a focus on action learning. Land-tenure arrangements proved key to these interventions. The report describes the impacts.

This first CAPRi sourcebook is a fitting commemoration of the 15th anniversary of CAPRi. Unique among other training materials, it is based directly on the experiences and lessons of research on CAPRi core themes from around the world. The presentation is simple and straightforward, but it is based on sound underlying research.

Foto: ILO/Flickr

Neste artigo se discute a relação entre conhecimento e sociedade sob a perspectiva da produção da verdade. Através de uma abordagem etnográfica, se examina relações cambiantes entre segurança ontológica e segurança jurídica no espaço da profissionalização da assistência jurídica em Timor-Leste1. Sugere-se, em consequência, que posse e alienabilidade da terra são produzidos em múltiplos cenários através de composições, sempre contingentes e emergentes, entre agendas de interesse heterogêneas e técnicas com pretensão de verdade.

Des facteurs variés tels que les politiques publiques en faveur du relogement des populations démunies, la promotion de la privatisation des droits fonciers agricoles, ainsi que plus généralement la croissance économique ont favorisé l’étalement urbain dans les principales villes du Maghreb dont Meknès au Maroc. Cette urbanisation s’intensifie au détriment des terres à fort potentiel agronomique malgré les lois pour la préservation des terres agricoles. À Meknès, les agriculteurs familiaux situés en périphérie urbaine ont fourni la grande majorité du foncier constructible.

Foto: Luis Eduardo Tavares/manufaturadeideias/Flickr (CC