The Cambodian case examines migration, land tenure and land management, in a context of conflict and the use of force in land transfers since the time of the Khmer Rouge regime to the present, by studying five agro-ecological zones close to the Kamping Pouy irrigation system in Battambang Province. The study combines analysis of demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of household use of land and labor with a historical and ethnographic review of conflict and institutional factors in successive land administrations.

ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: This paper was originally commissioned by IGES to review the Community Forest Act, 2007 “from a rights perspective” and to assess its impacts (or at least its predicted impacts) on livelihoods. However, the task has been a moving target. While ratification was pending the focus shifted towards assessing the potential impacts of the “Act” on the assumption that it would be passed. Now, as there seems little chance that community forestry legislation will be resurrected in the foreseeable future, the focus has again shifted.

In this paper we address the often sterile and circular debates over relationships between poverty and deforestation. These debates revolve around questions of whether forest loss causes poverty or poverty contributes to forest encroachment, and questions of whether it is loss of access to forests or dependence on forest-based livelihoods that cause poverty. We suggest that a way beyond the impasse is to set such debates within the context of agrarian change.

This participatory poverty assessment (PPA 2006) comprises one component of ADB’s Technical Assistance to the Lao People’s Democratic Republic for Institutional Strengthening for Poverty Monitoring and Evaluation. The goal of this PPA, as with the first PPA in 2000, is to complement the statistical analyses of poverty in a meaningful way and to record the experiences and concerns of the poor in order to initiate and identify more effective forms of public and private actions to alleviate poverty.

The concept of Community Forest Management (CFM) was officially recognized for the first time in Vietnam with the implementation of the Law on Forest Protection and Development (2004).

BACK COVER: This book is a case study of Vietnam’s efforts to fight poverty using market-oriented land reforms. In the 1980s and 1990s, the country undertook major institutional reforms, and an impressive reduction in poverty followed. But what role did the reforms play? Did the efficiency gains from reform come at a cost to equity? Were there both winners and losers? Was rising rural landlessness in the wake of reforms a sign of success or failure?

"Logging in Muddy Waters" analyzes the boom in forest exploitation that characterized the 1990s in Cambodia, focusing on the instrumentalization of disorder and violence as a mode of control of forest access and timber-trading channels. The article examines tensions existing between the aspirations of Cambodians for a better life, the power politics of elites, and the hope of some in the international community for a green and democratic peace.

The analysis of `ambiguous lands' and the people who inhabit them is most revealing for understanding environmental deterioration in Thailand. `Ambiguous lands' are those which are legally owned by the state, but are used and cultivated by local people. Land with an ambiguous property status attracts many different actors: villagers hungry for unoccupied arable lands in the frontiers; government departments looking for new project sites; and conservation agencies searching for new areas to be protected.

This paper argues that conflicts in the northern Thai highlands are a clear case of the politics of environmental discourse in the sense that conservation has played a role in lending legitimacy to both government agencies and ethnic communities in their struggle for the control of forest resources. Underlying such conflicts is the official line of negative thinking about ethnic minorities in the hills by associating them with various vices, namely as enemies of the forest, opium producers, and a threat to national security.

Four years ago, I was part of a research team looking at access to land and basic services in informal settlements.

We conducted field interviews in Mukuru slums in Eastlands. We were amazed at the levels of development in the area. People were constructing permanent structures despite the fact that they were under the impression that informal settlements are characterised by temporary structures.

Four years later, there are ongoing discussions to address the plight of informal settlements. A fundamental starting point is to address issues of tenure security.

Formal land administration systems in developing countries have failed to cope with the wide range of land rights that have evolved under non-formal land tenure arrangements. Urban informal settlements in particular pose a challenge to existing land administration infrastructure in these countries. The tenure types, land rights and spatial units found in such settlements are inconsistent with the provisions of existing land law. Conventional land administration approaches can not work in these settlements.

Does poverty in Egypt have a woman's face? Is female poverty linked to their conditions in the labour market or levels of education? Are women particularly at risk in poor households? This report addresses the gender dimensions of poverty using the recent Household Expenditure, Income and Consumption Survey of 1999/2000 for Egypt. Poverty measures of males and females were found to be significantly different, in both urban and rural areas, where higher levels are observed among females than males.