"Rural poor squeezed by land concessions in Mekong region: report," 29 May 2018

More than 5.1 million hectares of land - an area larger than Slovakia - were granted for mining and agricultural concessions in Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand, according to a report by the non-profit Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG).

Across the five countries that host the Mekong River watershed, governments have lured large-scale investments in land thought to be under-utilized, to generate jobs and incomes.

The concessions have changed traditional cropping, with 80 percent of all agricultural land now given over to six export-focused crops: rice, cassava, maize, sugarcane, rubber and oil palm.

Meanwhile, the average landholding per rural household has declined over the last 10 years, while some have been pushed from their land entirely...

Revenues generated by the concessions have been less than anticipated, and the social and environmental costs have largely been borne by the rural poor...

“Indigenous people, forest dwellers and other ethnic minorities have very little protection,”... 

Land concessions in Cambodia have displaced more than 770,000 people since 2000...

Other governments have improved environmental and social impact assessments, but rural communities are largely excluded from the processes...