Land and Forest Governance

The Indonesian village of Malitu is famous for its vast forests of palm trees and palm sugar production. Yet, obtaining a license for the granulated palm sugar product has been no easy task for the Malitu people, who often waited years for approval while a large industrial timber plantation controlled the land. When the plantation’s permit eventual… Read more

Kerinci Seblat National Park (KSNP) plays a vital role in biodiversity conservation in Indonesia. Maintaining the sustainability of forests is crucial, as they serve as a key water source for the community, support livelihoods, and contribute significantly to people’s well-being by ensuring access to clean water and enhancing food security. In Beng… Read more

Forest degradation presents a significant risk to food security, communities’ livelihood in rural areas, and climate change. In many world regions, women are not given equal access to forest resources and are seen as irrelevant to formal forest management and decision-making. By engaging civil society, the youth, and women can play a vital role as… Read more

A mountainous tropical forest on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, the Leuser Ecosystem is the last place on earth where the elephant, rhino, tiger, and orangutan still roam together in the wild. But the forest is under pressure from poachers, illegal loggers, and miners, who strip the land of resources, causing floods and destroying villages. Now,… Read more

We arrived at Plaboo Village, in northeast Thailand’s Maha Sarakam Province, just as a community meeting hosted by the local farmers’ association was coming to a close. It was hot and dusty, but the recently constructed community center was an oasis of clean, unfinished wood bedecked with flowers and colorful pillows. Around 60 residents were seate… Read more

For decades, the ethnically and linguistically diverse people of Isan, Thailand, have been the subject of pervasive bias, often described as docile and uneducated, or as “unsophisticated peasants” who can be bought and manipulated by ambitious politicians. Bordered by Laos and the Mekong River to the north and east, and by Cambodia to the southeast… Read more

The flash flood that hit her village in 2006 unexpectedly propelled Dewi Sartika, 38, from low income into abject poverty. The district government relocated some 170 affected households, including hers, to nearby land owned by the state plantation company, but granted them only four hectares each, roughly 400 square meters, from which to scratch ou… Read more

The Philippines has a real estate problem. Half the real property in the country—approximately 12 million parcels of land—has no legal title. Like many countries in Asia, the island nation is experiencing rapid urbanization, and a large proportion of these urban residents in particular lack official titles to the plots of land they live on, which h… Read more