The people: Changes in land ownership

From common property to private ownership

In the past, land ownership was regulated by customary laws and traditional rules which, because of previous low populations, maintained healthy ecosystems while meeting the needs of communities.

These rules included the sanctity of sacred forest groves thought to be inhabited by spirits and therefore off limits to logging and clearing for cultivation, and taboos prohibiting the hunting of certain species.

Under the traditional systems of land ownership most ethnic families were able to obtain enough land for cultivation, again because of the much smaller population in the past. The concept of private ownership was, therefore, alien to ethnic people who saw the land belonging to the community and having no monetary value.

However, since the early 1960s land and forests have been owned by either state farms and enterprises or by agricultural cooperatives. As part of agricultural reforms, in the mid-70s land and parts of the forests were given over to individual households or groups of households, leaving many indigenous communities with even less farm land and forest which had until then provided the essential of every day life. What was once common property became private.

Yet even those who acquired their own property have not necessarily gained. Households of people who once practiced shifting cultivation were allotted land to encourage them to settle and improve their farming methods but the result has been a very short fallow period, leading to degradation and erosion of the soil.

WWF on the ground
As the provincial government continues to implement its policy of reallocating forest land to households and communes, WWF Greater Mekong Programme, as part of its MOSAIC project, and in partnership with the provincial government, is working with local people to develop land management plans to enable them to improve production.

At the same time, WWF Greater Mekong Programme is concentrating on making sure that forest land is allocated to the correct community unit, that communities get legal rights to the forest and assistance in developing sustainable forest management systems built on traditional rules, values and taboos.