Vientiane Time, February 17, 2012

The capacity for commercial agriculture plantations to alleviate poverty in rural areas of Laos must increasingly be weighed against the potential impacts on ecosystem services, sustainability of land resources and traditional livelihoods.

The National Economic Research Institute (NERI) yesterday presented the results from a study on the economic valuation of ecosystem services for sustainable land use at a national policy workshop in Vientiane. The case study compared both the financial returns and the environmental costs of different land uses such as non-timber forest products collection, upland rice farming and maize and rubber plantations in Oudomxay province.