Safeguarding customary forest tenure in the Mekong Region: a legal analysis

Customary forest tenure is under increasing pressure from various actors for economic, political, and environmental purposes. The erosion of customary forest tenure can impair societal nature relations, erode traditional practices, and contribute to environmental degradation. In the Mekong Region, customary forest tenure largely remains unprotected through national laws. This article presents a legal analysis examining the extent to which the legal frameworks of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam contain legal provisions for safeguarding customary forest tenure within different resource systems, agricultural land, swidden land and forests, drawing on Schlager and Ostrom's bundle of property rights. The legal analysis shows significant gaps exist in legal frameworks to safeguard customary tenure. We recommend that policies toward statutory recognition be developed from the ground up and consider the harmonisation between land and forest laws and relevant implementing ministries.