Conservation & society .ecological knowledge and the making of plantation concession territories in Southern Laos

For the purposes of this paper I will set aside normative judgements concerning the present and future livelihood outcomes of this case study project for local communities. One can simply note that villages in these areas of Laos face extreme livelihood vulnerability. There is certainly the potential for this agribusiness investment project to stimulate broad improvements to local livelihoods, although this is by no means guaranteed.