How would environmentally sustainable development look if it was gender-sensitive? This report argues that much mainstream literature on environmentally sustainable development has ignored the gender dimensions. Where women have been the target of programmes, they have been seen as natural managers of environmental resources. A gender analysis is important because gender relations affect the ways in which poor men and women manage natural resources.

Trade liberalisation processes impact differently on men and women due to the fact that men and women have different roles in production. Despite the fact that women are actively involved in international trade, WTO agreements are gender blind and as such have adverse impacts on women. The General Agreement in Trade and Service (GATS), for instance, provides for a level playing field in service provision between big foreign owned companies and small locally owned companies.

The analysis of `ambiguous lands' and the people who inhabit them is most revealing for understanding environmental deterioration in Thailand. `Ambiguous lands' are those which are legally owned by the state, but are used and cultivated by local people. Land with an ambiguous property status attracts many different actors: villagers hungry for unoccupied arable lands in the frontiers; government departments looking for new project sites; and conservation agencies searching for new areas to be protected.

ABSTRACTED FROM INTRODUCTION: In this article, we aim to outline the emergence of territoriality in state power in Thailand, formerly called Siam. In particular, we examine the use of what we call internal territorialization in establishing control over natural resources and the people who use them.

WEBSITE INTRODUCTION: In Uneven Development, a classic in its field, Neil Smith offers the first full theory of uneven geographical development, entwining theories of space and nature with a critique of capitalist development. Featuring pathbreaking analyses of the production of nature and the politics of scale, Smith's work anticipated many of the uneven contours that now mark neoliberal globalization. This third edition features an afterword updating the analysis for the present day.

In the two decades since the 1992 Rio Conference, Land-Use Planning (LUP) has become recognized as a key instrument in putting discourses on sustainable development into practice. In Lao PDR, despite the implementation problems, it is still seen as a lever for securing land tenure, rationalizing extension services provision, and more recently, for implementing ‘Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation’ (REDD) schemes. Impact assessments of past LUP have revealed weaknesses of local institutions in the effective implementation of land policies.

ABSTRACTED FROM CHAPTER INTRODUCTION: This paper was originally commissioned by IGES to review the Community Forest Act, 2007 “from a rights perspective” and to assess its impacts (or at least its predicted impacts) on livelihoods. However, the task has been a moving target. While ratification was pending the focus shifted towards assessing the potential impacts of the “Act” on the assumption that it would be passed. Now, as there seems little chance that community forestry legislation will be resurrected in the foreseeable future, the focus has again shifted.

This paper examines recent conflicts over freshwater fisheries in Cambodia using the notion of accumulation through dispossession as a conceptual starting point. Despite a recent material turn, theoretical literature on the political economy of the environment has only partially incorporated an ecologically nuanced view of nature into analyses of its transformation under processes of capital accumulation.

Since the early 1960s, notwithstanding dire predictions of agricultural theorists and colonial observers, agricultural growth has been strong among most Southeast Asian countries. More recently, this expansion has reached the maritime domain, with the rapid development of aquatic production through sea-based aquaculture among others. In recent territorial expansion and increase in yields for export crops has been faster than for food crops.

Production of commodities for global markets is an increasingly important factor of tropical deforestation, taking over smallholders subsistence farming. Measures to reduce deforestation and convert shifting cultivation systems towards permanent crops have recently been strengthened in several countries. But these changes have variable environmental and social impacts, including on ethnic minorities. In Vietnam, although a forest transition - i.e.

ABSTRACTED FROM SUMMARY: Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) is a direct approach for environmental conservation whereby service providers receive payments that are conditional on acceptable conservation performance. An enabling legal framework is an essential prerequisite for successful PES implementation. Before drafting new legal instruments, the current legal framework should be assessed for potential opportunities and bottlenecks. This policy review therefore aims to analyze the existing policies and legislations that are relevant to PES implementation in Northern Thailand.

WEBSITE ABSTRACT: The report aims to contribute to the establishment of a PES scheme that promotes sound environmental management, contributes to poverty reduction and tenure security, and taps into payments for carbon sequestration. IUCN’s work on PES at Doi Mae Salong builds on the achievements of the Livelihoods and Landscapes Strategy (LLS) between 2007 and 2010, and its successor, the Poverty Reduction in Doi Mae Salong initiative (PRDMS), launched in April 2010.