Hongthong Sirivath
BY SUZI STEFFEN
Half a World Away
A Q&A with a Laotian environmentalist
H
ongthong Sirivath is a Laotian man
who majored in agricultural sci-
ence and now works for a nonprofit
environmental non-governmental organiza-
tion (NGO) in Laos, a southeast Asian coun-
try that lies between Thailand and Vietnam.
He spent two weeks this summer in Eugene
consulting with the Environmental Law
Alliance Worldwide (ELAW).
Some issues in Laos resemble our own:
deforestation, land use planning issues, agri-
cultural land being used for development.
And of course, the remains of the expanded
Vietnam War haunt the country, with land-
mines making daily life a challenge for the
villagers Sirivath works with. EW sat down
with Sirivath at the end of his time here, just
before he went to visit Crater Lake and some
Lao friends in Portland, to find out about his
projects and the work he’s doing in Laos.
For the many Oregonians who don’t
know much about Laos, tell me what
it’s like.
Laos is very hot and humid right now [37-
38 degrees Celsius or 99 degrees Fahrenheit].
Most people live along the Mekong River, on
the border of Thailand. The capitol is
Vientiane. Most people speak Lao, but there
are 48 minority groups with their own lan-
guages. We have about 6 million people.
Tell us about your project.
I’ve been working since 2000 for an
American
NGO,
Village
Focus
International. I’m based in Laos as a project
coordinator. It’s a community-based natural
resource management project in the Xe Sap
natural area of the Salavan province. The
place we’re working is where people live on
the bubble zone of a national protected area.
It’s got the most biodiversity in the country.
It is difficult to access and difficult to
exploit. The project is trying to strengthen
local people in order to use and manage
their natural resources in a sustainable way.
Most of the people in the project are a
minority group, the Taoi, who have their
own language. About 40 percent of them
speak Lao, and of that, about 20 percent read
and write. So we’re trying to do four things:
land use planning, conservation, an aware-
ness raising campaign and legal reform in
regard to the land as a natural resource.
How is it set up?
In the villages, we have three projects:
Land and livelihood; food security; and
health, education and leadership for success.
We discuss with the village authorities
where the boundaries are and make them
official. We help them figure out how to set
boundaries using GPS and GIS to make a
database for the government, classifying
various land uses. We walk with them and
ask them where to make the different areas
— conservation zones for the forests at the
tops of the mountains, bamboo management
zones, livestock areas, the spiritual forest,
fish conservation areas in the Mekong.
Then we help them develop agricultural
activity. Most of the people are used to
doing shifting cultivation, slash and burn,
and we try to help them do things like rice
paddies, which are permanent.
I thought rice farming was rather
water intensive. What kind of rota-
tion do the farmers use?
It’s rice first, then things like cucumber,
corn, eggplant and many plants they can eat
daily. We try to build a dam and irrigate
from small streams. In the rainy season, we
channel the water. But there’s lots of erosion
on the slopes after destroying the forest with
slash and burn, so to keep it going, we plant
fruit trees after the rice is harvested, things
like mangos.
What are the environmental chal-
lenges you and the villagers are fac-
ing?
Economic development and
globalization. The people haven’t
needed money at all; they relied on
natural resources. They have rice,
bamboo shoots, mushrooms from
the forest. Not many outsiders came
in; not many traders came to them.
But now, we’re building a big
road to Vietnam. A lot of people
come in along the road; then the vil-
lagers see televisions and motor-
bikes, so they harvest things like rat-
tan and mushrooms to guarantee
themselves money to buy things.
What about land use?
The government has a policy of
getting outside investment, like pulp
mill companies coming in and build-
ing factories. They also come in and
plant soybeans, cassava, teak and
acacia in order to make paper. They
take resources, and they take communal
lands for this purpose. For instance, a big
company from India asked for 300,000
hectares of land that covers 100 communi-
ties.
How is your project fighting this kind
of thing?
We are training the villagers to think they
can have an impact. For instance, Taoi youth
in high school volunteer and learn how to do
a puppet show, storytelling, explain posters
and ask how villagers can consider giving
land to companies, how to deal with the
negative impact. They help the people ask
the government to give land back to them.
How do you balance the needs for
agriculture and conservation with
the needs for economic develop-
ment?
That’s what I came here to learn! I’m
working with a cluster of villages to help
them come together as a group, so in this
case, we win. When the company comes to
talk to the villagers about what land they can
use, the villagers will have a plan.
The village leaders don’t know their
rights and responsibilities, so we’re produc-
ing a legal guidebook.
But we cannot just give the guidebook,
which will be finished by the end of the
year. We have a model of a training course
for teams that will go into the villages and
train people in the community.
What animals and plants are in
danger?
It’s a very biodiversity-rich area. The
deer — saola — is in trouble. And the pin-
chon — peacock — is already gone. A lot of
things are gone. And the village cannot do
anything; if the land is taken, the culture is
broken.
What hope do you have for the
future?
When people can survive, they will pro-
tect the forest. People in the rural areas are
key people to protect the forest. Finally, the
goal is that natural resources in Laos will be
preserved and we’ll be a natural resource
country. Before it was 75 percent forest;
now, it’s 40 percent, and I hope to regener-
ate it to 50-60 percent.
ew
Note: A longer version of this story is available on our
website (www.eugeneweekly.com).
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AUGUST 30, 2007 13