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Ecosystem research focuses on goods and services, thereby ascribing beneficial values to the ecosystems. Depending on the context, however, outputs from ecosystems can be both positive and negative. We examined how provisioning services of wild animals and plants can switch between being services and disservices. We studied agricultural communities in Laos to illustrate when and why these switches take place. Government restrictions on land use combined with economic and cultural changes have created perceptions of rodents and plants as problem species in some communities. In other communities that are maintaining shifting cultivation practices, the very same taxa were perceived as beneficial. We propose conversion factors that in a given context can determine where an individual taxon is located along a spectrum from ecosystem service to disservice, when, and for whom. We argue that the omission of disservices in ecosystem service accounts may lead governments to direct investments at inappropriate targets.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-016-0813-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Ethnic minority farmers in the infamous Golden Triangle were first incorporated into the nation states of China, Laos and Thailand, and later into the economic region called the Golden Economic Quadrangle. This article traces policies in each country for minorities, development and the environment, followed by an analysis of agrarian transitions under economic regionalization. Using the framework of powers of exclusion and racialization, our findings show the changes for ethnic minorities who, with the exception of those in the lowlands, face environmental enclosures that dispossess them from lands on which livelihoods are based. Ideological legacies from the Golden Triangle, including ‘backward’ minorities, the fight against drugs, and threats to national security, continue to inform policies and development projects. While some farmers have become entrepreneurs planting cash crops, most face increasing marginalization under deepening regional capitalism.