Land Use and Livelihood in Laos:
From Field Studies on Forestry, Agriculture and Plant Resource Management
HIROTA Isao, HYAKUMURA Kimihiko, OCHIAI Yukino, YOKOYAMA Satoshi and KONO
Yasuyuki
Concerning the rural life in Laos, many ethnic groups currently adopt their own
land use system and practice various subsistence activities depending upon the
natural environmental conditions of each place. This is a notable feature of
rural Laos. In particular, farmers in Laos are commonly engaged in swidden
agriculture for food production and hunting animals and gathering plants for
domestic use, while in other areas in mainland Southeast Asia, such as northern
Vietnam and Yunnan Province of China, these traditional activities are rarely
found, even though the same ethnic groups inhabit in both areas. Moreover, many
farmers in Laos are still occupied in self-sufficient agriculture by using
indigenous practices, in spite the commercial and modern agriculture have been
developing in the surrounded areas.
The geographical features of mountains and low population pressure can account
for the maintenance of traditional agriculture in Laos. Probably, insufficient
infrastructure development and low influence of government leading for
modernization could be considerable obstacle for Laotian farmers to engage
marketable and intensive agriculture. These may be also the reasons why wide
ranged land use system and subsistence activities are preserved in the current
rural Laos.
However, one can hardly imagine that this situation should continue in the
future. Actually, after Chintanakan-mai, the new way of thinking policy, has
been adopted in 1986, rural life in Laos has highly changed: for example,
land-forest allocation program has carried out and commercial farming of new
cash crops has introduced. Also, another question to consider is addressed: who
is the real actor of these changes? It is estimated that many of the changes had
risen not by domestic people’s own initiatives but by outsider’s guidance and
suggestions. Thus, actions of foreign governmental and nongovernmental
organizations and private companies have made a huge impact on many aspects of
political and economical issues of all over the regions in Laos.
How we should expect the future of rural Laos? Is it going to move to the
direction of centralized and standardized situation of northern Vietnam and
Yunnan Province, or create a unique style to maintain its diversity and own
characteristics? However, unfortunately, few reports on Laotian rural life are
available. Therefore, based on the field surveys in the forest and farmland,
this panel provides three topics, 1) plant uses for minor subsistence, 2)
changes in land-forest use and 3) relationships between ethnic groups and
occupation structure, to discuss about the close interaction between land,
biological resources and people in Laos. We aim to argue the past, present and
future of rural life in Laos from the comparative views with surrounding areas
of the mainland Southeast Asia.