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The Social Lives of ForestsPast, Present, and Future of Woodland Resurgence$
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The Social Lives of Forests: Past, Present, and Future of Woodland Resurgence

Susanna B. Hecht, Kathleen D. Morrison, and Christine Padoch

Print publication date: 2014

Print ISBN-13: 9780226322667

Published to Chicago Scholarship Online: September 2014

DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226024134.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM CHICAGO SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.chicago.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright University of Chicago Press, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in CHSO for personal use.date: 03 July 2022

* From Swidden to Rubber

* From Swidden to Rubber

Transforming Landscape and Livelihoods in Mountainous Northern Laos

Chapter:
(p.260) 20 * From Swidden to Rubber
Source:
The Social Lives of Forests
Author(s):

Yayqi Fujita Lagerqvist

Publisher:
University of Chicago Press
DOI:10.7208/chicago/9780226024134.003.0023

This chapter focuses on the driving forces behind land use change in upland areas of the Sing district in Laos and how these changes affect local people's livelihoods and their relationship with land. Changes include expansion of agricultural lands, replacement old swidden and fallow lands, and encroachment of commercial agriculture into forest, as well as complex interaction between local stakeholders and the evolution of policies that influence households’ decisions on land use and their livelihoods. Intensification of land use for commercial agriculture is especially prominent in areas along the road where population are concentrated due to government policies encouraging relocation of upland people. Different factors influence farmers’ decisions to plant commercial crops, including concentration of population and loss of access to extensive agricultural lands, increased need for cash income, and available access to capital and inputs. Villagers are increasingly privatizing areas of communal land by planting rubber, and making claims to land, as there is no formal land title issued for households. Competition for land is also increasing as investors and others make claims to land. Loss of access to land and other basic means of livelihood is creating a new kind of poverty in rural Laos.

Keywords:   Land use change, Deforestation, change in forest access regimes, commercial agriculture, cross-boundary information, Chinese investment

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