Environmental Sustainability

This chapter regards the state of Laos’s environment and how it relates to political decisions. It highlights the process of adaptation to changing environments through political decisions. Whereas the policy direction may not always be clear to everyone, it usually revolves around striking a balance between improving livelihoods, preserving natural resources, preventing (natural) disasters and growing the economy. This process of co-adaptation, however, is tightly linked with the politics of consent on development goals. Consequently, we cover Laos’s state of the environment in general, then zoom into a local community and describe the adaptation process they are facing. Following this, we will address some of the newer developments in Lao policy revolving around natural resource utilisation and development and conclude by listing some of the opportunities in the environmental governance of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR).