Land and Livelihoods

The goal of the Land & Livelihoods program is to empower indigenous villages to protect themselves from outside development and logging by demarcating village boundaries, working with villagers to plan how land will be used, and providing thorough trainings and information on the legal rights guaranteed to ethnic minorities to occupy their traditional lands.

Hill tribe communities in the uplands of Southern Laos have been extremely isolated from the outside world throughout their existence, but development is slowly encroaching as a road is being paved through to Vietnam. Villagers must understand their legal right to protect their land and become proper guardians of their native forests.