The Indigenous World 2023: Laos

Written on 29 March 2023. Posted in Laos

With a population of just over 7 million,^[1],[2] Laos is the most ethnically diverse country in mainland Southeast Asia.^[3] The ethnic Lao, comprising around half of the population, dominate the country economically and culturally. There are, however, some provinces and districts where the number of Indigenous people exceeds that of the Lao and where their culture is prominent. There are four ethnolinguistic families in Laos; Lao-Tai language-speaking groups represent two-thirds of the population.

The other third speaks languages belonging to the Mon-Khmer, Sino-Tibetan and Hmong-Ew-Hmien families and are considered to be the Indigenous Peoples of Laos. Officially, all ethnic groups have equal status in Laos, and the concept of Indigenous Peoples is not recognized by the government, despite the fact that Laos voted in favour of adopting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Lao government uses the term ethnic group to refer to Indigenous people.

The Lao government currently recognizes 160 ethnic sub-groups within 50 ethnic groups. Indigenous Peoples, especially those who speak Hmong-Ew-Hmien languages, are unequivocally the most vulnerable groups in Laos. They face territorial, economic, cultural and political pressures and are experiencing various threats to their livelihoods. Their land and resources are increasingly under pressure from pro-investment government development policies and commercial natural resource exploitation. Indigenous people lag behind the majority Lao-Tai at all economic levels. They have more limited access to healthcare, lower rates of education, and less access to clean water and sanitation. Between 20 and 32.5% of Indigenous people relying on unimproved or surface water compared to just 8.5% of Lao-Tai, and while only 13.9% of Lao-Tai practice open defecation, this rises to between 30.3 and 46.3% among Indigenous people.^[4]

Laos has ratified ICERD (1974), CEDAW (1981) and ICCPR (2009). The Lao government, however, severely restricts fundamental rights, including freedom of speech (media), association, assembly, and religion, and civil society is closely controlled. Organizations openly focusing on Indigenous Peoples or using related terms in the Lao language are therefore not allowed, while open discussions about Indigenous Peoples with the government can be sensitive, especially since the issue is seen as pertaining to special (human) rights. During the 2015-2019 period, the Lao PDR submitted four national reports, including to the ICCPR.

This article is part of the 37^th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. The photo above is of an Indigenous person in Tanzania. This photo was taken by Geneviève Rose, and is the cover of the Indigenous World 2023 where this article is featured. Find the Indigenous World 2023 in full here.

Dissemination of the Decree on ethnic affairs

From April 2021 to April 2022, the Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs (DOERA) disseminated the new Decree on Ethnic Affairs in districts with international borders across all provinces of the country. This series of workshops was the first opportunity for DOERA to conduct outreach awareness raising on this scale and promote Indigenous Peoples’ rights in State management by disseminating the Decree on Ethnic Affairs, aimed at promoting Indigenous Peoples’ awareness of their rights and entitlement to development benefits. Indigenous Peoples were invited to participate and share their concerns: issues that emerged included access to health care and government services, education for Indigenous youth, a desire to be recognized as a distinct group, etc. In total, over 400 people participated in the workshops, including Mon-Khmer, Sino-Tibetan and Hmong-Ew-Hmien speaking groups.^[5]

Conservation in Laos

Lao PDR is in one of the 10 most important global biodiversity ecoregions and home to some of the world’s biologically richest and most endangered species. The country includes four ecologically diverse regions: (a) the Northern Highlands, (b) the Annamite Range; (c) the Indo-Chinese karst landscapes; and (d) the Mekong plain.

There are an estimated 8,000–11,000 species of flowering plants in the country, many of which are economically valuable; between 150 and 200 species of reptiles and amphibians, 700 species of birds, 90 species of bats, over 100 species of large mammals, and 500 species of fish.^[6] The Lao government has established three categories of wild animal based on geographic range, population size and population decline/increase, in addition to extinction probability analyses. This categorization and its associated restrictions have a direct impact on Indigenous communities’ access to the wildlife on which they rely for food, clothing, shelter, culture, trade, income etc.

The first National Biodiversity Conservation Areas (NBCAs) were established by Prime Ministerial Decree 164 in 1993.^[7] There are currently 23 National Protected Areas in Laos covering an area of over 29,000 km². The area occupied by protection and conservation forests is over 80,000 km² – 33.3 % of Lao PDR, and 76 % of recognized forest estate.^[8]

The government has established its first four national parks in the last two years: Hin Nam Nor, Nam Et Phou Leuy, Nakai Nam theun and Phou Khao Khouay. Hin Nam No, the country’s third national park and a preeminent example of Indo-Chinese karst, is short-listed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to become the nation’s first natural UNESCO World Heritage site.^[9]

In addition, local authorities have established 57 provincial conservation forests; 23 provincial protection forests; 144 district and 8 conservation forests and 52 district protection forests totalling 1.4 million ha.^[10]

Over 840,000 people in over 1,200 villages live within or on the boundary of 23 national biodiversity reserves. Most of these villagers belong to Indigenous Peoples’ groups and are heavily dependent upon the sustainable use of natural resources within these reserves for their nutrition and livelihoods.^[11] These guardian villages are increasingly involved in the collaborative management of those protected areas.

Strengthening inter-agency law enforcement cooperation to mitigate illegal timber and wildlife-related trade

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) and the Prosecutor’s Office have recently improved methods of coordination by signing Agreement 422 in April 2022 to address the issues of the illegal timber industry and wildlife trade. They have agreed to set up a joint committee in charge of dealing with criminal offences regarding the Forestry Law and Law on Aquatic and Terrestrial Animals. There has also been an agreement between the Environment Police and DOFI at the central level and right down to the province and the idea is to coordinate with the Lao Wildlife Enforcement Network (Lao-WEN), which gathers together all officers including police, army, customs, etc. The agreement on wildlife signed at central level also includes timber.

The development of a national regulatory framework and subsequent law enforcement is likely to restrict Indigenous Peoples’ access to natural resources and forest, and animals listed as protected species, notably in the Totally Protected Zones (TPZ) within National Protected Areas.^[12]

Forest management devolution and recognition of customary land tenure

The new Forestry Law (2019) promotes village forest management over much of the forestry estate. This is a huge paradigm shift as it effectively places forest management under the responsibility of those directly dependent upon the forests for their livelihoods. The principles of the national conservation strategy acknowledge that conservation efforts will only be made possible by respecting and supporting the knowledge, innovations, and practices of local people who depend on them.^[13] Proper FPIC is yet to be implemented and the implementation on the ground differs between provinces. In Bokeo province, for instance, the Provincial Agriculture and Forestry Office (PAFO) proactively plans to scale up community forestry in 100 villages in the next five years; other provinces, however, have not even started to pilot community forestry yet.

Some international projects are currently advancing the Policy Framework on Land Tenure Recognition inside Forestlands. The World Bank’s (WB) Enhancing Systematic Land Registration Project (P169669) has been supporting the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) and the MAF to draft a Prime Ministerial Decree on Issuing Titles and Land-Use Certificates in State Forestlands, with technical support from Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) and the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG). In 2022, GIZ prepared draft guidance to provide implementation details for those processes, MRLG is piloting the issuing of titles and certificates inside State forestlands in Khammouane province, and the WB is likely to receive funding to start preparing an action/investment plan for the implementation side. This will allow Indigenous people to secure their permanent production land by means of individual land titles inside conservation, protection and production forests. This would directly contribute to the recognition of land use inside the national forest category but many are sceptical and doubt that the decree, even if proclaimed, will ever be implemented.^[14]

Indigenous communities entitled to benefits from Carbon Fund payments

In 2022, the Governance, Forest Landscapes and Livelihoods project (GFLL) started implementing a pilot project in six northern provinces, all sharing an international border with one of the surrounding countries of Thailand, Myanmar, China and Viet Nam and covering 8.1 million hectares. The project builds on the indicative benefit-sharing arrangements proposed in the Emission Reductions Programme Document (ERPD). Indigenous forest-dependent communities are entitled to 90 % of the 77 % share of the performance-based allocations of the ER Payments from the Carbon Fund.^[15] Indigenous communities’ customary conservation areas consist mostly of sacred forest, spirits forests, ceremonial grounds, cemeteries (often several areas depending on the type of death), leprosy forest (in the past lepers were ostracized from the community to avoid spreading) and forest sanctuaries. All of those Indigenous conservation forests are now being closely monitored, contributing on the one hand to their protection from predatory exploitation by external actors looking for land for commercial plantation, mining, etc. and on the other now enabling Indigenous communities to generate economic benefits.

Indigenous communal land titling

The NGO Meaying Huamjai Phattana (MHP) or Women Mobilizing for Development Association successfully supported the documentation and demarcation of customary land-use rights and land-use practices in the two Indigenous communities of Paktha district, Bokeo Province in 2022. The process followed the standard process of Forest Land-Use Planning as per the Department of Forestry but MHP went further in obtaining a communal land tenure certificate for the Village Use Forest (VUF) in both villages.

Recognition of communal land tenure quite an achievement in the Lao context where customary land tenure has not yet been recognized. MHP has been a key civil society organization involved in the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade towards Voluntary Partnership Agreement (FLEGT-VPA)^[16] negotiation process in Laos and this achievement is being uploaded in the first database that MHP and its partner have just set up to collect evidence and research that can be used to support discussions in the FLEGT-VPA in Laos.

The Association for Rural Mobilization and Improvement (ARMI), the Wildlife Conservation Association (WCA) in Laving-Laveung National Protected Area in Savannakhet province, and the Rural Research and Development Promoting Knowledge Association (RRDPA) in Sayabouly province are also among the CSOs advocating for and strengthening forest-dependent Indigenous communities’ rights to manage their forest and natural resources in Laos.

Various empowering schemes are now widely used by internationally funded projects for example Lao Landscapes and Livelihoods and non-governmental organizations such as the Regional Community Forestry Training Centre and the World Wide Fund for Nature, including Free, Prior Informed Consent. After decades of being scapegoated for the deforestation and forest degradation in Laos, the wind seems to be blowing in a new direction and Indigenous communities are now increasingly perceived as guardians, with their participation a sine qua non criterion for sustainable management of the forest and biodiversity in Laos.

Steeve Daviau, anthropologist, has been working on Indigenous Peoples’ issues in Laos for over 20 years. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This article is part of the 37^th edition of The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. The photo above is of an Indigenous person in Tanzania. This photo was taken by Geneviève Rose, and is the cover of the Indigenous World 2023 where this article is featured. Find the Indigenous World 2023 in full here.

Notes and references

^[2] World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/country/LA

^[3] “Ethnic minorities and indigenous people.” Open Development Laos, 28 August 2018, https://laos.opendevelopmentmekong.net/topics/ethnic-minorities-and-indigenous-people/

^[4] UN OHCHR. “Statement by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights on his visit to Lao PDR, 18-28 March 2019.” 28 March 2019, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=24417&LangID=E

^[5] Daviau, Steeve. Report on the Dissemination of the Decree on Ethnic Affairs presented to the Department of Ethnic and Religious Affairs (DOERA), Ministry of Home AFFAIRS (MOHA). Funded by the Swiss Cooperation (SDC), 2022.

^[6] According to: Lao People´s Democratic Republic. “National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan 2016-2025.” https://faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/lao163645.pdf

^[7] Robichaud, William., C. W. Marsh, S. Southammakoth, S. Khounthikouommane. “Review of the National Protected Area System of Lao PDR.” Lao-Swedish Forestry Programme, Division of Forest Resources Conservation (Department of Forestry), IUCN-The World Conservation Union, 2001, https://data.laos.opendevelopmentmekong.net/library_record/review-of-the-national-protected-area-system-of-lao-pdr

^[8] Clarke, J. E. “Biodiversity and Protected Areas in Lao PDR.” Regional Environmental Technical Assistance 5771, https://data.opendevelopmentmekong.net/dataset/0bbcda64-c9eb-4325-94a8-f4e27ca04f7d/resource/2607ebf9-649e-4743-a9f2-57f58f2ded51/download/0002547-environment-biodiversity-and-protected-areas-lao-p-d-r.pdf

^[9] “Lao Biodiversity: A Priority for Resilient Green Growth.” Green Growth Advisory Programme for Lao PDR, 4 February 2020, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/34131/Lao-Biodiversity-A-Priority-for-Resilient-Green-Growth.pdf?sequence=4&isAllowed=y

^[10] Lao People´s Democratic Republic.

^[11] The World Bank. “Lao Biodiversity: A Priority for Resilient Green Growth.” 17 July 2020, https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/lao/publication/lao-biodiversity-a-priority-for-resilient-green-growth

^[12] Total Protection Zone refers to a forest area that is pristine and unused, the main habitat, feeding and breeding place for various wild animals and it is a place of diverse and dense vegetation. In this zone, it is strictly prohibited to conduct any forestry activity or to harvest any forest products, and there must be no unauthorized entry into the zone.

^[13] Akkharath, Inthavy. “The Biodiversity Conservation in Lao PDR.” https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/febc/d601/be8635c27bb12d873fac7ef9/tscws-2017-01-19-laos-pdr-en.pdf

^[14] Personal communications with government officials from the Department of Forestry, December 2022.

^[15] Department of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. “Governance, Forest Landscapes and Livelihoods-Northern Laos. Benefit Sharing Plan (FINAL).” September 2021, https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/657571634612542776/pdf/Lao-Peoples-Democratic-Republic-Northern-Laos-Emission-Reductions-Payments-Project-Benefit-Sharing-Plan.pdf

^[16] Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) is the EU's Action Plan to eradicate illegal logging and subsequent trade in tropical countries by strengthening the enforcement, governance, sustainable forest management (SFM) and promotion of trade in legally-produced timber. FLEGT VPAs are trade deals between the EU and a timber producing country that are negotiated in a way that ensures that wood being sold in the EU can be shown to be legally sourced. They aim to deliver a timber trade that is transparent, accountable and sustainable and which supports, rather than harms, forest communities.

Tags: Land rights, Global governance, Human rights, IWGIA