Browsing by Subject "woodlot"

The economy of Laos has been growing fast in recent decades, causing profound changes in rural livelihoods, traditional agriculture and the environment. The governments’ land use policies aiming to restrict shifting cultivation are shifting the subsistence farming towards more market-oriented agriculture production. In addition, increased job opportunities, improved infrastructure and increased land pressures are affecting smallholder farmers’ livelihood strategies. Despite the rapid economic growth, income disparities remain high in Laos, with high rates of poverty especially in rural areas remaining common. The rural households are often highly dependent on agriculture and forest resources for the income and food security. Therefore, it is important to study how the rapid economic transition and changes in agriculture affect their livelihood strategies. The four research questions addressed in this study were 1) What are the main changes in households’ livelihoods ( ‒ the strategies households create and follow to improve their livelihoods) and land use at village-level over the past 10 years? 2) How the forests/forest cover have changed in the village over the past ten years and what have been the main drivers for the changes? 3) How the smallholders’ access to and availability of forest resources have changed over the past ten years? 4) What kind of shocks the households have experienced in the past 12 months and what have been their coping strategies to overcome the shocks? Primary data was collected using three different methods. Altogether 90 randomly selected households were interviewed in the three rural villages in Nambak district in Luang Prabang province. In addition, two separate focus group discussions with different gender and one key informant interview were conducted in each of the study village. Household surveys data was collected on households’ demographics, main income sources and changes in capital assets and cropping. In focus group discussion data was collected on most important environmental resources, forests and landscape changes. In key informant interview data was collected on main characteristic of village infrastructure, history, forest cover and land use. The study showed that the households have introduced many valuable cash crops and trees to their farms in the last 10 years. Improved access to markets and high demand for crops, (such as cardamom, galangal, broom grass and rubber) from neighboring countries has changed crop production, livelihood strategies and livelihood outcomes in study villages. The shift from subsistence agriculture to more cultivation of cash crops and more labour opportunities in large-scale cash crop plantations has increased household income. In addition, cash crop cultivation requires less labour input than replaced upland rice production. Livelihood shocks experienced by households were mostly crop failures due to drought, livestock losses due to diseases and severe illnesses of household members. It was found that households mainly coped with shocks by using cash savings, indicating that shocks were either relatively minor, or increased incomes allow them to overcome shocks without having to sell assets or other actions. In terms of changes in availability of forest resources, some of the non-timber forest products are reportedly over-harvested in the villages and there are less trees now than 10 years ago, especially in production forests, since local people have been cutting them for domestic use. In addition, forest cover has decreased, since forests have been cleared for rubber plantations and farmland. The changes in crop production and intensification of land use has improved the households’ overall income-level. Over 80% of the respondents thought their incomes have increased over the past 10 years. However, the cash crops price fluctuations and potential decline of sale prices can have negative impacts to the smallholders’ livelihoods and food security. The households’ resilience to cope with livelihood shocks is often dependent on the capital assets they possess. The relatively poor households are generally more vulnerable to livelihood shocks; therefore, having sustainable and diverse livelihood strategies is important in rural villages. In addition, the increasing land pressures from agricultural intensification and population growth, overuse of NTFPs, and large-scale cash crop plantations can lead to deforestation and forest degradation in the village areas.