Ethnic groups starve as forests are cleared in Laos
Kunravee S
26 June 2023 at 11:04  (Updated on 26 June 2023 at 12:37)
BANGKOK, THAILAND – Land acquisitions in Laos are forcing many Hmong ethnic minority groups to lose access to the forests that traditionally provided them with food. There are fears these land deals will worsen the hunger and malnutrition the Hmong face in their already impoverished households.
A 41-year-old Hmong man named Toyang* and his family, who live in Laos’ northern Luang Namtha province, are on the brink of starvation. For generations, his ethnic community had relied on the forests for food.
The moist ground and rich biodiversity in the mountainous jungle provided them with edible plants, from bamboo shoots and mushrooms to herbs.
Any surplus from the food they collected in the wild was sold in local markets and gave them some extra income.
Having access to the forests prevented many ethnic minorities, especially those with impoverished backgrounds like Toyang, from hunger. The forests also supplied water to his farm where he grew food.
However, in the past decade, Toyang and his Hmong community have struggled to find food in the wild as the forest areas have shrunk in size.
The once lush forests have been turned into large-scale monoculture and chemical-intensive plantations run by multinational “investors” – who came to his town after being granted land leases or concessions by the Lao government.
Rubber, banana, cassava, sugarcane, corn, beans and coffee are among the crops planted on the land granted to these investors.
“I can’t get much from the forest. Water is also not abundant, and my farm is not productive anymore,” said Toyang.
Launched in the late 1990s, land acquisitions were a Lao government strategy to boost local economic development by transferring land rights to domestic and foreign investors for an agreed period of time.
A 2020 report, released by the Centre for Development and Environment (CDE) of Switzerland’s University of Bern, indicated that a total of 1,758 land deals – covering areas of 11.75 million hectares, or roughly 50% of Laos’ territory – were granted to investors. This number was estimated based on data collected between 2014 and 2017.
The land taken up by investors has been mainly used in the mining sector, agriculture and tree plantations, especially rubber and eucalyptus. Foreign investment accounts for 61% of the total area granted for land deals. Half of these come from China, Vietnam and Thailand.
The same report pointed out that 240 of these deals, covering an area of 137,332 hectares, were in national forest areas.
A survey of local communities affected by 296 of the land deals found that one-quarter of the villages experienced a loss of food availability because of multiple factors, including the loss of access to communal forests, changing climatic conditions and chemical contamination due to land use changes.
Somporn*, a social worker in northern Laos, said a Chinese investor came to her area and cleared a forest to grow bananas, betel nuts and other types of edible plants. The harvested crops are then sent back to China to feed people there, while local villagers in Laos who are affected by these land deals go hungry.
“After the businessmen arrived here, and the trees were cut down, there has been little left for us to eat,” said 37-year-old ethnic Hmong Saisana from Xam Neua, the capital of Houaphanh province in northern Laos.
Due to local communities’ complaints, the Lao government issued a series of moratoria on land deals, most recently in 2018, to prevent new concessions for mining, rubber and eucalyptus plantations.
But the impact of the land acquisitions continue as leases and concessions can last up to 50 years.
Villagers in northern Laos told Mekong Eye that they are now forced to rely more on buying food since they can no longer obtain food from the wild, as they had done for generations.
This will likely increase the malnutrition problem, especially for impoverished ethnic families and their children, who have limited power of purchase and the forests had been their last resource.
The 2020 Global Hunger Index indicated that malnutrition in Laos’ population was at a severe level. Hunger can be felt differently among communities due to disparities in geography, ethnicity, gender or wealth. The average child stunting rate in Laos was 33% in the 2020 index, and is the same in the 2022 index.
Another 2022 report released by the Center for Nutrition under Laos’ Ministry of Public Health pointed out that the underweight rate of children under five was about 21%, and acute malnutrition was 9%.
Malnutrition was reported in 54% of children in Phongsali province, 49.9% in Sekong, 48.3% in Xieng Khouang and 40.7% in Hua Phan. Half of the stunted children were from Hmong households, who mainly live in the northern part of the country.
A doctor at a hospital in Phongsali province told Mekong Eye that children living in remote areas are often thin and short because of inadequate nutrient intake. Their parents must work in the fields and struggle to provide good food for their children.
“Most of the children [in northern Laos] often eat fruit, mushrooms, bamboo shoots and insects in the forest. They haven’t had much meat. Some parents don’t properly provide for their children [with protein] until their children reach one year old,” said an anonymous social worker in northern Laos.
Sitthiroth Rasphone, the head of the Development Research Institute under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said during the 8th National Congress in 2022 that Lao authorities and relevant sectors had made efforts toward addressing malnutrition.
He mentioned some of the solutions, including promoting the production of food in varieties and quality, and sustainable farming.
But some social workers pointed out that the government had inadequately addressed a long-term solution – the impact of land deals on local communities’ food security.
One social worker who spoke anonymously said that fragmented governance plays a big role in the government’s failure to link the impact of food security to land deals.
For example, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry focuses on farm productivity, while the Ministry of Planning and Investment prioritized increasing investment, including the expansion of monoculture and land deals.
Malnutrition is seen only from the perspective of health, said the social worker, and it is not integrated with the country’s central development plans.
In parallel to deforestation relating to land acquisitions, climate change has also played a role in disrupting food security for ethnic minorities.
A World Food Organization report released in April 2022 suggested that climate change, combined with poor access to markets and diverse livelihoods, affected the food security of people in remote upland areas, where 25% of households were food insecure.
A 2020 report by the Department of Climate Change Protection under the country’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment linked various development and investment projects – from large-scale plantations and land use changes to the extractive industry that caused expansive deforestation – have contributed to climate change impact, especially droughts and floods.
This development, if implemented without responsibility, could undermine the food security of the population in Laos, 80% of whom make their living from farming, livestock, hunting and food gathering.
Thong Chan*, a 36-year-old villager living in Wiang Kham in Luang Prabang province, said that drought had been more severe in the mountainous areas of northern Laos, where the irrigation system does not reach many ethnic minority villages.
“When the forest is destroyed [in the land lease or concession areas,] the water is even more dried up,” he said, adding that water shortages also affected people earning a living from livestock.
Lu*, a 57-year-old Hmong in Luang Nam Tha province in northern Laos, said that declining wild food related to deforestation had forced young people in her community to migrate and seek factory and labor jobs in Laos and Thailand.
From the perspective of the Lao authorities, the impact of land deals on local communities must be weighed up against national prosperity.
“People in our country are still poor, and it’s necessary to attract investment first from the government’s point of view,” said a Lao official who did not want to be named.
*We used pseudonyms for every interviewee to ensure their safety.
This story was supported by Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.