This study investigates four decades of socioeconomic and environmental change in a shifting cultivation landscape in the northern uplands of Laos. Historical changes in land cover and land use were analyzed using a chronological series of remote sensing data. Impacts of landscape change on local livelihoods were investigated in seven villages through interviews with various stakeholders. The study reveals that the complex mosaics of agriculture and forest patches observed in the study area have long constituted key assets for the resilience of local livelihood systems in the face of environmental and socio-economic risks. However, over the past 20 years, a process of segregating agricultural and forest spaces has increased the vulnerability of local land users. This process is a direct outcome of policies aimed at increasing national forest cover, eradicating shifting cultivation and fostering the emergence of more intensive and commercial agricultural practices. We argue that agriculture-forest segregation should be buffered in such a way that a diversity of livelihood opportunities and economic development pathways can be maintained.
More than two decades ago, Schlager and Ostrom (1992) developed ‘a conceptual schema for arraying property-rights regimes that distinguishes among diverse bundles of rights’. The conceptual framework has profoundly influenced research on natural resource governance, common property, and community resource management. However, currently natural resource governance has changed dramatically, challenging the applicability of the conceptual schema. There are now many more social actors involved in resource management than the local communities at the focus of original analysis. Additionally, resource management increasingly provides access to various kinds of benefits from outside the immediate context, including indirect benefits such as payments for environmental services and results-based payments for REDD+. These changes demand addition of new property rights to the original framework. Those changes of governance process demand addition of property right to original framework. This paper updates the conceptual schema in reaction to changes in natural resource governance, proposing three specific modifications on the focus of use rights, control rights and authoritative rights to come up with a framework that distinguishes eight types of property rights. We apply the framework to three purposefully selected governance interventions in China and Laos that include the provision of indirect benefits in addition to the direct benefits derived by local people from natural resources. The empirical application shows how contemporary governance changes may not lead to local people’s outright dispossession, since they continue to possess direct use rights to natural resources. However, local people may be excluded from control and authoritative rights, which are exercised exclusively by state agencies and international actors. The latter make available indirect benefits to local people, which may or may not translate into use rights in the sense of policy-based entitlements. The empirical insights suggest the possibility of a wider trend of ‘compensated exclusions’ in natural resource governance
International climate negotiations have stressed the importance of considering emissions from forest degradation under the planned REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation + enhancing forest carbon stocks) mechanism. However, most research, pilot-REDD+ projects and carbon certification agencies have focused on deforestation and there appears to be a gap in knowledge on complex mosaic landscapes containing degraded forests, smallholder agriculture, agroforestry and plantations. In this paper we therefore review current research on how avoided forest degradation may affect emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and expected co-benefits in terms of biodiversity and livelihoods. There are still high uncertainties in measuring and monitoring emissions of carbon and other GHG from mosaic landscapes with forest degradation since most research has focused on binary analyses of forest vs. deforested land. Studies on the impacts of forest degradation on biodiversity contain mixed results and there is little empirical evidence on the influence of REDD+ on local livelihoods and tenure security, partly due to the lack of actual payment schemes. Governance structures are also more complex in landscapes with degraded forests as there are often multiple owners and types of rights to land and trees. Recent technological advances in remote sensing have improved estimation of carbon stock changes but establishment of historic reference levels is still challenged by the availability of sensor systems and ground measurements during the reference period. The inclusion of forest degradation in REDD+ calls for a range of new research efforts to enhance our knowledge of how to assess the impacts of avoided forest degradation. A first step will be to ensure that complex mosaic landscapes can be recognised under REDD+ on their own merits.
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