Thạc Sĩ Analyzing Impacts of Rubber Plantation on Poverty Reduction, Land Ownership and Natural Forest Resou

Luận án tiến sĩ năm 2013
Đề tài: Analyzing Impacts of Rubber Plantation on Poverty Reduction, Land Ownership and Natural Forest Resource in Northern, Lao PDR

TABLE OF CONTENTS
DECLARATION i
ABSRACT ii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ni
TABLE OF CONTENTS iv
ABBREVIATION vi
LIST OF FIGURES viii
CHAPTER 1: THESIS INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 Rationale 1
1.2 Objectives 3
1.3 Research Questions 4
1.4 Scope of the study and study area 4
1.5 Research Methodology 6
1.5.1 Research model 7
1.5.2 Data Collection Method 8
1.5.3 Data Collection Process 11
1.5.4 Data profile 12
1.5.5 Data processing 15
1.6 Research Contribution 15
1.7 Research Limitation 16
CHAPTER 2: ANALYTICAL FRAMWORK OF ANALYZING IMPACT OF RUBBER PLANTATION ON POVERTY REDUCTION, LAND OWNERSHIP AND NATURAL FOREST RESOURCE 17
2.1 Basic issue of impact analysis 17
2.1.1 Impact assessment 17
2.1.2 Basic theory of impact evaluation 18
2.2 Rubber Plantation Development 18
2.2.1 Overview of Rubber Plantation Development 18
2.2.2 Factors Determining Rubber Plantation Development 22
2.2.3 Plantation and Economic Development 23
2.3 Political and Legislation Factors on rubber plantation development 25
2.3.1 Government Sừategies for rubber production in Lao PDR 25
2.3.2 Laws related to plantation development 25
2.3.3 Policies related to p lantation development 29
2.3.4 Policies on Land Ownership 32
2.3.5 Forest Land Conversion and Concession for Plantation 34
2.3.6 Policies impacts on plantation development 46
2.4 Existing approaches for analyzing impact of rubber plantation on
poverty reduction and land ownership and natural forest resources 50
2.4.1 Impact of Rubber Plantation on Poverty Reduction 51
2.4.2 Impacts of Rubber Plantation on Land Ownership 55
2.4.3 Impacts of Rubber Plantation on Natural Resource 56
2.5 Lesson learn from Vietnam 58
CHAPTER 3: ANALYZING IMPACTS OF RUBBER PLANTATION ON POVERTY REDUCTION AND LAND OWNERSHIP AND NATURAL FOREST RESOURCES IN NORTHERN LAOS 61
3.1 Overview of Sing District, North of Laos 61
3.2 Rubber Introduction in Northern Laos 63
3.3 Factors Determining Rubber Plantation Development in Northern Laos 65
3.3.1 Lao Government’s Foreign Investment Promotion Policy 66
3.3.2 Regional Market Influences 67
3.3.3 Villagers’Motivation 68
3.4 Impacts of Rubber Plantation on Poverty Reduction, Land Ownership
and Natural Forest Resource in Northern Laos 70
3.4.1 Impact on Poverty Reduction 70
3.4.2 Impact on land ownership 76
3.4.3 Impact on Natural resources 79
3.5 Reason of negative impacts 83
CHAPTER4: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 87
4.1 Conclusion 87
4.2 Recommendation 89
4.3 Implication 92
REFERENCE 94
ANNEX 1 99

ABSRACT
This examined the economic impacts of rubber plantations on rural people’s livelihoods and forest resources. Sing district of LuangNamTha Province was selected for field data collection and different techniques for data collection at the field level were designed focusing on qualitative data analysis. The outcome from the field data analysis was shared with the government officers at both provincial and national levels The results of the study ìllusừated that rubber plantation have both positive and negatives impacts The rubber planting provides alternatives on land use opportunity for the upland cultivators and it will also contributes to the achievement of forestry strategies implementation to increase the forest cover in the future. The negative impacts happened to the livelihoods of local people, especially during the awaiting period for latex tapping. However, those impacts will decrease when income can be generated from the rubber latex The study revealed that immediate technical assistance at the provmcial and district level are required. Natural resource management and land use planning need to be improved to minimize the impacts of wide spreading of land conversion


CHAPTER 1 THESIS INTRODUCTION
Sustainable forestry and land use to promote social and economic development is a key component of development policy in many developing countries. Putting in place the right combination of resource use, industrial development policies to meet these goals is a complex policy challenge This thesis analyzes Impacts of Rubber Plantation on Poverty Reduction, Land Ownership and Natural Forest Resource in Northern, Lao PDR using in-dept interview technique for data collection as well as using conduction analysis to produce the results.
This chapter provides an overview of the thesis and its structure. It begins by discussing the problem statement of the research, followed by its rationality, objectives, questions, scope, research site, conh'ibution and limitation of the present study. It then outlines the structure of the study
1.1 Rationale
A demand for rubber production has grown worldwide significantly over the past decades due to rapid progressive economies of China and India. Global rubber consumption has risen up to 5.9% in average annually since early 2000s (Douangsavanh, Thammavong& Noble 2008 &Vongkhamor, s. et al. 2007). Although the market for rubber m industrial nations is more stable and unlikely expected to in crease, rubber is extremely increasing in "New Asia emerging economies" including China, India and other the ASEAN counừies. In 2003, China’s rubber imports shot up almost 24% (Raintree 2005). This has created opportunities for, then, rubber plantation programs to be largely invested in potential rubber producing counh'ies in order to supply the rubber market demand.
In Lao PDR, historically, rubber was first ìnừoduced by French planters in Champasack Province (m 1930) during the colonial period. After that, more than 50 hectares of rubber plantation areas were again established into Bachiangchalemsouk District, Champasack Province by the Development of Agriculture, Forestry and Industry (DAFI) (NAFRI 2008). From 1994 to 1996, over 342 hectares of rubber plantation were established by the Hmong villagers at HadNyao village, Namtha district, Laungnamtha Province. In this period, rubber plantation development was in an initial stage However, rubber plantation has been rapidly increasing in the last few years, resulting from the high market demand for latex from China, India, Thailand and Vietnam (Alton et al., 2005, FRC, 2005) and a consequence of establishment of recent government policy on the investment promotion This creates more opportunities for both foreign and domestic investors to interest in large scale investment business on land concession
The government of Laos has recognized investors’ interest in rubber production as the best economic potential which could contributes to the national economy and ensure socially and economically improvement of local fanners. “Lao PDR is aiming to expand its rubber cultivated area to 180,000 hectares by 2010. Through this expansion policy, income will be generated through the export of rubber, and it is expected to create jobs for plantation workers, tappers, processors and rubber dealers. This policy will also enhance Laos’ various resettlement strategies and rapidly alleviate poverty among the rural communities. Through the rubber industry, it IS hoped that further foreign direct investment will flow into Laos (Rasphone 2009).
Since earlier 1990s, promotion of agricultural commodities’ production has been implemented in the Northern part of Lao PDR in order to stabilize shifting cultivation and opium poppy production Para rubber regarded as “green gold” or “the tree of hopes” was introduced in various areas in Northern provinces. Since 2000, the Government of Laos has opened land investment for rubber plantation to both domestic and foreign enterprise, aiming to improve rural people’s livelihoods and to graduate from poverty. Many degraded forest areas have been conversed into rubber plantation and this practice was extensively common (Douangsavnah,
Thammavong& Noble 2008). The increase of rubber plantation has resulted from infrastructure development and changes of institutionalization to support regional trading (Leebouapao et al 2005). Rubber plantation is the hope of local people to improve their quality of life. It IS believed that, rubber plays an important role in generating alternative income of local villagers. It is recognized as crucial options for the poverty eradication of the Government of Laos.
Thus, when the market began to boom in 2004, the demand on lands for rubber plantations have increased significantly As a result, the traditional agricultural practices of the local in the Northern Laos have recently shifted from subsistence based production tov/ards market based production Since rural fanners have potentials to connect to agricultural market information, their fallows are converting into cash crops such rubber fields. The extensive rubber plantation is currently a controversial issue concerning its impacts on rural livelihoods and environmental condition crhongmanivong et al. 2006). Although several studies has been done to seek the impact of the plantation on local livelihood such as Shing (2008), Thongmamvong et. al, (2008), they are not in-dept enough to understand the links between the plantation development and the local livelihood due to their lack of consideration of social factors. Furthermore, Lao overall still has a lack of experiences and knowledge on lubber, most of the techniques derived from China & Thailand, even though there is a rubber planting guideline, produced by NAFRI recently (2008). Therefore, there is a need to further investigate whether rubber is the best answer to poverty eradiation and to improve livelihoods and ensure sustainable natural resource utilization and accessibility.
1.2 Objectives
In general, this research aims to examine the economic impacts of rubber plantations on rural people’s livelihoods and local land and forest resources. In particular, the specific objectives of this research are to:
1. Investigate impacts of land conversion for rubber on improving rural livelihoods in the northern pail of Lao PDR
2. evaluate the contribution of rubber expansion on natural resources accessibility and utilization and on the sustainability of environmental condition
3. Give recommendations to multiply the contribution and avoid negative effect of rubber investment on local livelihood and natural resources
1.3 Research Questions
This study is attempting to understand the impacts of land conversion for rubber plantation on the socio-economic and livelihoods of the local residents and environmental conditions. Meanwhile rubber investment is recognized as the key economic opportunity, thus how can government authorities and local farmers minimize risks and maximize this opportunity. However, the study intends to figure out the following specific research questions:
1. If and how does rubber plantation reduce rural poverty? How do smallholders meet their food and income needs during the non-productive period of rubber planting?
2. What is the impact of rubber plantation on land ownership? How does rubber plantation become a barrier of poor households to access and utilize the natural forest product resources?
3. What is the impact of rubber plantation on natural forest resources?
1.4 Scope of tile study and study area
The direction of study is to understand the positive and negative conh'ibution of rubber investment on local livelihood and natural resources The research especially compares their income generated by rubber production before and after the land concession as well as agrarian land use change and natural resource accessibility and depletion in Northern of Laos. The study evaluated and compare the potential conh'ibution of land conversion into larger rubber areas and cash crop production and initiative maintenance of the natural resources in the studied area Therefore, the cost-benefit analysis will be used in this research In order to make it sound scientific, the below figure shows the framework of the study First, it will be at the national level which focuses on the government policies and sừategies on land development and foreign direct investment as well as the government mechanism minimizing its adversely impacts, specifically in Northern part of Lao PDR. This aim is to review the policy on turning land into capital. Secondly, provincial, community and household level will be targeted to investigate external factors on agri-business and land lease including the assessment of impact of agrarian land use change on rural people’s economic and livelihoods and cultural transition in study areas The study conducted between 2009 and 2011.
The site of the study was deliberately select as a case study of the present thesis. In Laos, rubber plantation has been rapidly expanded especially in the Northern part smce the pass decades This has been because of a higher demand of Chinese for rubber production couple with the promotion of foreign investment of the Local authorities who have welcomed Chinese investors to investment in the business of their interests especially in rubber plantation. Today, the figure shows that rubber plantation areas in the North reach 58% of total rubber plantation in Laos and continue expansion of this plantation is expected (NAFRI 2007). Much of these plantations are concenừated in Sing District of LuanNnamTha Province.
For this reason, Sing districted was selected for not only a large investment on rubber plantation taking place but also easy access to the site. Sing IS located in the north-western side of LuangNamTha Province, sharing borders with Xishuangbanna, Chma, to the northeast, Myanmar to the north and northwest, Muang Long district on the west and LuangNamTha district to the south. The political and adminisừative cenừe of the district is Muang Sing, a small town made up of a cluster of several villages. According to the population census conducted in May 2005, the district has a total population of 30,548 distributed in 96 villages.


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