Decisions on land use in Vietnam are often only based on biophysical and economical assessments, with little consideration for the local people’s opinions or perspectives. This can lead to conflicts over natural resources management, unsustainable land use and decisions that are unfair to local people. In the landscape surrounding Khe Tran, a village in Central Vietnam lives a Pahy minority group. The driving force in this area has been different land use policies, resulting mainly from a government ‘top down’ approach, and the consequent changes in local forest status.

The brief illustrates two communities’ efforts through collective action to secure property rights over their land. As conflict over natural resources and the need for sufficient farm land continue to increase, both men’s and women’s groups tried to negotiate their rights to manage natural resources to maintain their livelihoods. The groups also tried various governmental schemes and other approaches to secure their rights over land.

This paper examines the conversion of Indonesia’s natural forests to timber and tree crop plantations, notably oil palm. The principal aims are to understand the impact of this process on natural forest and on forest-dwelling people, and to establish whether past and present policies governing this process are meeting their objectives.

This paper presents the combined results of two separate orangutan survey efforts and an assessment of land cover change analysis in the Danau Sentarum, National Park (DNSP), West Kalimantan, Indonesia These studies show that the DNSP and surrounding areas contain high numbers of orangutans, making these populations of global significance to the species survival in the wild. However, in the park and its surrounding areas, 40,339 ha habitat disappeared between 1973 and 1990, and 32,586 ha between 1990 and 1997.