Agro-industrial plantations and transforming socio-ecological landscapes of Southern Laos - Asst. Prof. Dr. Miles Kenney-Lazar - Universität Hamburg
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- Asien-Afrika-Institut
- Forestry and Plantations in Southeast Asia
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19.11.2021
Agro-industrial plantations and transforming socio-ecological landscapes of Southern Laos
Since the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR or Laos) liberalized its economy in the 1980s, it has pursued a development path built upon the exploitation of its natural environment – its forests, minerals, rivers, and agricultural land. In the early 2000s, the government began granting significant areas of the country’s land as concessions for resource investors. Over one million hectares were granted for mining and agro-industrial plantation projects. As with other countries across Southeast Asia, such land investments have produced devastating social and ecological effects, such as deforestation, soil degradation, chemical pollution, and land dispossession. Oftentimes, villagers, whose livelihoods were closely linked to land and forest resources, have struggled to adapt to the changes that plantations bring. This seminar will provide an overview of agro-industrial expansion in mainland Southeast Asia, with a focus on southern Laos. Based upon over a decade of research in Laos, it will highlight the drivers and governance of plantations and their implications for rural livelihoods and environments.
Miles Kenney-Lazar is Assistant Professor at the Department of Geography of the National University of Singapore. His research explores the changing political ecologies of land and property in the Mekong Region. In particular, he is interested in the capitalisation and commoditisation of land and how this impacts agrarian and environmental settings, and livelihoods. Empirically, he examines land contestation related to the expansion of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Burmese agro-industrial plantations and special economic zones in Laos and Myanmar.
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“Forestry and Plantations in Southeast Asia (SEA)” is the topic of a two-semester series of classes. During the summer semester of 2021, the class has already covered insular SEA, especially Indonesia and the Philippines. In the fall-winter semester of 2021/22, the focus will be on continental SEA.
Especially the Central Indochinese Highlands will be in the center of attention, and on the side of the three countries Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In recent decades, it is well known that so much natural forest area has been lost, so many hectares of plantations have been developed, starting in Vietnam, then spreading across the borders to Lower Laos and Northeastern Cambodia. The Vietnamese logging and plantation company Hoàng Anh Gia Lai is one prominent example. Similar processes occur in Northern Indochina as well, for instance along the Laos-China border. During the seminar and lecture series, we would like to raise some of the following questions, for example:
How did deforestation happen, and how did the plantation industry grow - causes, processes, and consequences.
How would forestry or ecology sciences, geography or sociology assess this matter?
What could and should be to done to preserve the natural tropical rain forest?
Are there are positive, effective methods to avoid the complete loss of natural tropical forests in the region of SEA, or is it doomed to disappear?
The seminar includes a number of guest lectures from experts of the field who will give insights into the topic from different perspectives.
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