Local communities are frequently displaced from areas selected for environmental protection. Development of nature-based tourism, believed to be more environmentally benign than traditional agricultural systems, has been encouraged by governments and national park managers in the hope of providing alternative livelihoods for local people. This paper examines the extent to which indigenous peoples resettled from within one Vietnamese national park have engaged with the nascent tourism industry, thereby providing a perspective on the success of their resettlement, through the eyes of those communities affected. The perspectives of resettled peoples are contrasted with those of villagers who have continued to reside within the national park, using traditional means of survival, along with new initiatives designed to supplement their livelihoods and to reduce their dependence on national park resources for survival. Resettled villagers are unable to survive on agricultural activity alone, tourism has done little to provide an alternate livelihood and the park environment is still threatened by the use of park resources by resettled communities in their struggle to survive.

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This paper explores the changing focus and role of development geography in Australian university teaching and research. It is based primarily on interviews with Emeritus Professors Harold Brookfield and David Lea and Professor John Connell, which were conducted as part of the Institute of Australian Geographers’ Millennium Project on Geography and Geographers. Drawing on the collective wisdom of these geographers, the evolution and characteristics of development geography in Australia and the reasons for its past strength are outlined. Additionally, the contributions made by this branch of the discipline to Geography are described, reasons for the parlous state of development geography in Australia today are presented and a number of issues related to its future survival are raised. The paper argues that, for the discipline of Geography in Australia to retain social relevance, a continuing focus on global inequality and its impacts at the local scale is essential.

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Internationally, the evidence about the successful design of refugee settlement programs is limited. To help address this gap, we examined staff practices within a program that aimed to advance the education, employment and empowerment of women from refugee and migrant backgrounds in communities in Northern New South Wales and South East Queensland in Australia. We engaged staff in collaborative critical reflection about their practice. Viewed through intersectionality, our findings revealed the empowering practice of staff in program design, in the ways that they worked together as a team and in their collaboration with broader supportive social networks. This practice was crucial to the program’s success and informed staff’ conceptualisation of what constituted that success. In brief, this study revealed the complex, often subtle features of professional practice that strives to be empowering in both the delivery of social service programs in this field and in the conceptualisation of program success. Future research is needed to acknowledge and support the developing practice wisdom in this field.