Pathways to human well-being in the context of land acquisitions in Lao PDR

Nanhthavong, Vong; Oberlack, Christoph; Hett, Cornelia; Messerli, Peter; Epprecht, Michael

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2021.102252

Cited by 24 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…However, this may only hold for privileged households with enough household labor and land, whereas the more vulnerable households lost in food-related coping capacities, and women's dietary diversity was lower among engaged households in Pattern 1. An increased wage dependency also increases vulnerability to the risk of failure of LAIs (Nolte 2020), and the conflicts about https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss4/art18/ environmental impacts of air and water pollution as well as pest increases may indicate an alternative mechanism of adverse impacts of LAIs on resilience, which is consistent with findings for LAIs in Sierra Leone (Bottazzi et al 2018) and Lao PDR (Nanhthavong et al 2021).…”

Section: Implications Of Large-scale Agricultural Investments Forsupporting

confidence: 69%

Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique

Oberlack¹,

Giger²,

Anseeuw³

et al. 2021

E&S

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Large-scale agricultural investments (LAIs) transform land use systems worldwide. There is, however, limited understanding about how the common global drivers of land use change induce different forms of agricultural investment and produce different impacts on the ground. This article provides a cross-country comparative analysis of how differences in business models, land use changes, and governance systems explain differences in socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts of LAIs in Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique. It brings together results on these aspects generated in the AFGROLAND project that collected data in a multi-method approach via household surveys, business model surveys, semi-structured household interviews, life-cycle assessments of farm production, analysis of remote-sensing data, key informant interviews, and document analysis. For the present project synthesis, we combined a collaborative expert workshop with a comparative analysis of 16 LAIs. The results show that the LAIs follow four distinctive impact patterns, ranging from widespread adverse impacts to moderate impacts. Results demonstrate how the following conditions influence how the global drivers of land use change translate into different LAIs and different impacts on the ground: labor intensity, prior land use, utilization of land, farm size, type of production, experience in local agriculture, land tenure security, accountability of state and local elites, the mobilization capacity of civil society, expansion of resource frontiers, agricultural intensification, and indirect land use change. The results indicate that commercial agriculture can be a component in sustainable development strategies under certain conditions, but that these strategies will fail without substantial, sustained increases in the economic viability and inclusiveness of smallholder agriculture, land tenure security, agro-ecological land management, and support for broader patterns of endogenous agrarian transformation.

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Section: Implications Of Large-scale Agricultural Investments Forsupporting

confidence: 69%

Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique

Oberlack¹,

Giger²,

Anseeuw³

et al. 2021

E&S

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“…Psychological estrangement and social barriers lead to inferiority and a sense of loss, anxiety and insecurity caused by the sudden loss of land, which results in a lack of self-confidence among landless farmers and a deviation in the identity of "new citizens". Research on the urban maladjustment of land-lost peasants shows that these peasants suffer from a loss of psychological welfare due to land expropriation (Wang et al, 2019;Xie, 2019;Zhou, 2020;Nanhthavong et al, 2021).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological Welfare Loss of Land-Expropriated Farmers in China

Xiao

Wang

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Mandatory land expropriation, resettlement and welfare loss of landless peasants have received increasing research attention. However, in most previous analyses, the loss of psychological welfare of landless farmers is often neglected, which may lead to biased land requisition compensation and resettlement programs and incomplete policy recommendations. This study attempts to use a three-dimensional framework of place attachment to analyze the causes of psychological welfare loss. China’s land expropriation and centralized resettlement cut off the material and emotional ties between farmers and land. Farmers’ dependence on land, or their dependence on land-dependent farming lifestyle, has been neglected in the process of land acquisition and resettlement, resulting in the loss of farmers’ psychological welfare. Based on a comparative analysis of the existing methods, this paper chooses the contingent valuation method (CVM) to measure the loss of psychological welfare of landless peasants via monetization. The feasibility of the model has been tested at a small scale in nine cities. The results show that 1) farmers have strong place attachment on agricultural land, although centralized land expropriation and resettlement have neglected this dependence and caused psychological welfare losses to landless peasants; and 2) the loss of psychological welfare of landless peasants can be measured by the CVM and presented in monetary units. The monetization measurement method in this paper still has some shortcomings and its feasibility requires more empirical tests. However, as a rare monetization measurement study, this paper can direct academic and policy attention towards this psychological welfare loss.

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“…. https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol27/iss3/art45/ Concession development has been a key driver of economic growth in Laos over the past 20 years (Nanhthavong et al 2021). In the recent decade, however, mounting evidence of increasing land conflicts, declining commodity prices (especially for rubber), and low return on concessions investments due to lack of effective management structures in the Government of Laos led the government to announce several concession moratoria, starting in 2007 (Kenney-Lazar et al 2018, Dwyer and Vongvisouk 2019.…”

Section: From Turning Land Into Capital To Green Growthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon emissions from land acquisitions in Laos

Bauernschuster¹,

Pichler²,

Nanhthavong³

et al. 2022

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Large-scale land acquisitions repeatedly fall short of their acclaimed socioeconomic benefits and are associated with unintended social, economic, and ecological costs. In Laos, the government has started to question its own "Turning Land into Capital" policy, and reviews land acquisitions or concessions with regard to their socioeconomic impacts. Empirical investigations of environmental impacts of land concessions, however, remain underrepresented. We link the nation-wide concession development between 2001 and 2017 with associated land use changes and quantify related land use change-induced emissions. Results show that land acquisitions for agriculture, forestry, and mining affect mainly forests and land previously used for shifting cultivation and permanent agriculture; e.g., rice paddies. Consequently, land conversions caused by concessions resulted in net carbon emissions of 4.9 Mt CO 2 e yr-1 on average in 2001-2017, which amounted to 34% of total emissions from land conversions. Even tree plantations that are meant to serve as net carbon sinks caused net emissions, but those data are the least robust. The relatively low carbon emission intensity of shifting cultivation compared to the high carbon emission intensity of concessions challenges the dominant narrative of shifting cultivation as a causal factor for forest degradation. Political means of fostering sustainable development include the reduction of land acquisitions because of their emissions intensity, and minimization of emissions and social conflict induced by granted concessions, for example, by allocating land with low carbon densities and obtaining consent of local land users.

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Pathways to human well-being in the context of land acquisitions in Lao PDR

Cited by 24 publications

References 73 publications

Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique

Why do large-scale agricultural investments induce different socio-economic, food security, and environmental impacts? Evidence from Kenya, Madagascar, and Mozambique

Psychological Welfare Loss of Land-Expropriated Farmers in China

Carbon emissions from land acquisitions in Laos

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