Forest-Land Commons in Laos in the Twenty-First Century: Agrarian Capitalism and the 'Non-Commodified Subsistence Guarantee'

Abstract

Over the last two decades, a broad alliance of domestic and international actors in the Lao PDR have devised policy interventions on the issue of ‘strengthening customary tenure’. The aim has been to establish legal protections for the rights of rural communities to forest-land commons, in the context of widespread enclosure due to large-scale land acquisitions. Secure tenure rights would be promoted through strengthened participatory procedures for land use planning, and the development of formalisation procedures, with the ultimate goal towards the widespread registering and titling of communal or collective land. Despite pilot innovations, progress towards this goal has been at best intermittent