Date: March 25, 2008
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The extension of land reform and titling programs into upland zones is currently being debated in Lao PDR. However, these reforms are advancing a version of tenure security that promotes market-oriented forestry development and legitimates neoliberal approaches to poverty alleviation.
This paper examines the contradictions at the heart of the "tenure security" discourse, drawing on the example of a village in central Laos. New land reform policies in Laos, implemented in concert with swidden reduction policies and large-scale investments in the natural resource sector are leaving to further insecurity and impoverishment of local communities.