(Solo disponible en inglés) Eucalyptus, oil palm, rubber and jatropha monoculture plantations are expanding onto local communities’ lands and forests in the Mekong region’s countries. Promoted under the guise of development, poverty alleviation and even climate change mitigation, such plantations are resulting in severe social and environmental impacts. In spite of the difficult political scenarios in which they are established, local peoples are resisting through whichever means are available to them, ranging from broad alliances against plantations (such as inThailand) to nascent clusters of local resistance against plantations in Cambodia and Laos. The aim of this briefing is to provide a broad picture of the on-the-ground reality of plantations in the region’s six countries –Burma, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam- as a means of generating awareness on the issue and, more importantly, to assist in making local peoples’ voices heard. At the same time, we hope that this information will serve as a useful tool for strengthening resistance against these types of plantations, both within and outside the Mekong region.
(Solo disponible en inglés) Eucalyptus, oil palm, rubber and jatropha monoculture plantations are expanding onto local communities’ lands and forests in the Mekong region’s countries. Promoted under the guise of development, poverty alleviation and even climate change mitigation, such plantations are resulting in severe social and environmental impacts.