Addressing the Environmental and Social Effects Associated With Export-led Agricultural Development: Cambodia and Laos

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is an ambitious effort at regional integration between Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, and western China which is slowly emerging through the expansion of trade and investment linkages as well as the construction of infrastructure to physically tie the countries together. Cambodia and Lao PDR are becoming providers of natural resources for their wealthier, more populous neighbors. Partly due to low-cost labor and a relative abundance of land, they are emerging as suppliers of agricultural commodities and industrial tree crops like rubber.

Recent years have seen a proliferation of large-scale land concessions, mostly to Chinese, Thai, and Vietnamese investors, to develop export-oriented agriculture and forestry projects. In Cambodia, concessions have been issued for hundreds of thousands of acres of rubber, sugar, cassava, and palm oil. In Lao PDR, the government has targeted a total area of 500,000 ha of industrial tree plantations by 2020. Both countries have adopted development strategies that seek to reduce rural poverty through increased exports of agricultural products and natural resources linked to foreign investment.

But the concessions boom is creating numerous environmental and social concerns, including displacement of smallholder agriculture into national protected areas; deforestation and fragmentation of remaining blocks of Dry Forest; and a significant increase in land-related conflicts between concessionaires and communities. In addition, government policies and donor programs that favor these types of agriculture may undercut alternatives for sustainable rural development. Given the negative impacts of plantations on existing resource-dependent rural livelihoods, such a strategy may worsen rural poverty further.

The process of managing concessions in both countries also has many problems, including an unclear division of responsibilities between national and provincial authorities and between government agencies; a failure to conduct necessary impact assessments; inadequate consultation with affected communities; and a lack of adequate land-use planning at various levels.

Through this project, WWF and its partners are responding to these challenges on a number of levels. Our work starts from the ground up, within ecologically important areas in Champassak (Laos) and Mondulkiri (Cambodia) Provinces, where WWF is already collaborating with government and community partners. Both provinces are hotspots of recent plantation development, with a risk of further environmental and social problems ahead. The following outcomes are being sought through this project:

1. More integrated land-use planning at a landscape level to ensure that concessions are allocated and managed in a more coordinated fashion; do not negatively affect ecologically important areas; and do not create further conflict with local communities.

2. Expanded capacity for land-use planning. The viability and effectiveness of land-use planning processes is jeopardized by a lack of technical capacity and resources at relevant institutions. In Cambodia, WWF is supporting the new Mondulkiri Provincial Conservation Planning Unit (PCPU), a multi-agency platform that seeks to improve coordination between conservation and development objectives. In Laos, WWF is supporting activities by the recently created Land Management Authority (LMA).

3. Greater participation of affected stakeholders. Local communities have been largely excluded from decisions related to land concessions. WWF seeks to expand concrete opportunities for these groups to participate in land-use planning and natural resource governance, as a way to achieve a more equitable distribution of development costs and benefits.

4. More coherent and consistent national policies and donor programs related to agricultural development, based on a greater understanding of environmental and social trade-offs. WWF and its partners are participating in policy dialogues, technical working groups, and donor consultations to promote the strengthening of relevant policies and institutions at a country level. At a regional level, WWF will promote the sharing of experiences and approaches through institutions like the GMS Working Group on Agriculture and SENSA, the Swedish Environmental Secretariat for Southeast Asia.