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Begin New Search Topic Agriculture Political Geography Southeast Asia Content Type Policy Brief Publication Year within 25 Years

11. Crossing Borders, Changing Landscapes: Land-Use Dynamics in the Golden Triangle

Author:
Jefferson Fox
Publication Date:
12-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Over the last half-century, public policy has affected land-use practices across the borders linking China, Thailand, and Laos. Political and economic reforms have facilitated labor mobility and a shift in agricultural practices away from staple grains and toward a diverse array of cash crops, rubber being one of the foremost. China has promoted the conversion of forests to rubber agroforestry in southern Yunnan--profitable for farmers, but a concern in terms of biodiversity and long-term viability. In Thailand, the response is at the other end of the spectrum as the government's concerns about land-use practices and watershed management have led to policies that dramatically constrain land-use practices and limit tenure rights. In Laos the future is not yet clear. Government policies provide weak support for both private land ownership and protected areas. In a global environment where national policy has such a dramatic effect on land use and land cover, the factors behind land-use change merit close examination.
Topic:
Agriculture, Economics, Migration, and Labor Issues
Political Geography:
China, Asia, Thailand, and Southeast Asia

12. Are the Farmers Always Right? Rethinking Assumptions Guiding Agricultural and Environmental Research in Southeast Asia

Author:
A. Terry Rambo
Publication Date:
05-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Southeast Asia faces enormous challenges in managing its agricultural and environmental resources, from global warming to biodiversity loss. But chances for effectively addressing these issues may be hampered by the wide acceptance of four basic assumptions that guide the way we think about problems of managing agriculture and the environment. These assumptions form an interlinked system of thought that privileges the traditional and local over the modern and cosmopolitan. When taken to an extreme they lead to the view that traditional farmers are always right and that modern science is the cause, rather than a possible cure, of the serious environmental problems associated with agricultural development in Southeast Asia. Although when first proposed these assumptions were a radical alternative to the conventional thinking, in recent years they have themselves become the new conventional wisdom.
Topic:
Agriculture, Development, and Environment
Political Geography:
Southeast Asia