Sarinda Singh
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824835712
- eISBN:
- 9780824871765
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824835712.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Asian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines some of the practices that attempt to deflect attention away from the Lao state's poor performance in managing the nation's forests. In particular, it considers three ways by ...
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This chapter examines some of the practices that attempt to deflect attention away from the Lao state's poor performance in managing the nation's forests. In particular, it considers three ways by which the Lao state counters the discourse of forest decline. First, the state's responsibility for forest decline is countered by attempts to make authority less discernible. Second, the state admits forest decline in Laos but attributes it to rural villagers through a focus on swidden cultivation and, to a lesser extent, deficiencies in reforestation. Third, conservation initiatives are misrepresented and subverted to direct attention away from state actions. The chapter discusses the implications of these forms of misdirection for donor–state relations and state–society relations. It argues that forest decline challenges state authority as it reflects social disparities that question the common endeavor of the nation.Less
This chapter examines some of the practices that attempt to deflect attention away from the Lao state's poor performance in managing the nation's forests. In particular, it considers three ways by which the Lao state counters the discourse of forest decline. First, the state's responsibility for forest decline is countered by attempts to make authority less discernible. Second, the state admits forest decline in Laos but attributes it to rural villagers through a focus on swidden cultivation and, to a lesser extent, deficiencies in reforestation. Third, conservation initiatives are misrepresented and subverted to direct attention away from state actions. The chapter discusses the implications of these forms of misdirection for donor–state relations and state–society relations. It argues that forest decline challenges state authority as it reflects social disparities that question the common endeavor of the nation.
Jefferson Fox
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226322667
- eISBN:
- 9780226024134
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226024134.003.0022
- Subject:
- Biology, Biodiversity / Conservation Biology
In the former opium-growing region of the Golden Triangle a road inaugurated in April 2008 that cuts directly through the formerly isolated high mountain areas of the region is bound to change the ...
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In the former opium-growing region of the Golden Triangle a road inaugurated in April 2008 that cuts directly through the formerly isolated high mountain areas of the region is bound to change the social, economic and environmental fabric of the region forever. It is also is the site of competing development regimes. Shifting cultivation in the region shaped the landscape, land cover, and land use across this transect in similar ways up through the end of World War II, and most of the corridor's inhabitants were identified as ethnic “minorities.” Over the past five decades, however, these countries have been under vastly different economic and political regimes influencing land use and land cover in the region today. This chapter examines narratives and policy frameworks from Xishuangbanna Prefecture, the most southern prefecture in Yunnan Province, Northern Laos, and Northern Thailand on how different issues ranging from forest classification, opium eradication, stabilizing shifting cultivators, to promoting trade, and developing infrastructure and markets affected land use and land cover in different ways in each of the three countries where varying policy approaches to land use tenurial regimes and regional projects have profoundly affected the vegetational/institutional structures in a significant biodiversity hotspot.Less
In the former opium-growing region of the Golden Triangle a road inaugurated in April 2008 that cuts directly through the formerly isolated high mountain areas of the region is bound to change the social, economic and environmental fabric of the region forever. It is also is the site of competing development regimes. Shifting cultivation in the region shaped the landscape, land cover, and land use across this transect in similar ways up through the end of World War II, and most of the corridor's inhabitants were identified as ethnic “minorities.” Over the past five decades, however, these countries have been under vastly different economic and political regimes influencing land use and land cover in the region today. This chapter examines narratives and policy frameworks from Xishuangbanna Prefecture, the most southern prefecture in Yunnan Province, Northern Laos, and Northern Thailand on how different issues ranging from forest classification, opium eradication, stabilizing shifting cultivators, to promoting trade, and developing infrastructure and markets affected land use and land cover in different ways in each of the three countries where varying policy approaches to land use tenurial regimes and regional projects have profoundly affected the vegetational/institutional structures in a significant biodiversity hotspot.
