With a relatively small population Laos managed to maintain the integrity of its tropical forests for longer than most of its neighbours. In recent years however illegal logging has continued to accelerate and goes largely unchecked despite a government ban on roundwood logs in 1999.
A shadowy corrupt government allocates few resources to forest protection. Nearly all the timber is exported going to China and Vietnam and volumes have jumped dramatically in recent three years.
Many of the local farmers and indigenous peoples in Laos have been affected by the widespread deforestation which has severely impacted their livelihoods as their community forests have vanished. Although many raw logs are exported, sawmills operate along the border areas too.
Laos borrowed heavily to build hydropower dams to create surplus electricity for export and a highspeed railway line from Thailand to China. The investments have not paid off as hoped leaving this least developed country burdened with debt it can ill afford.
Civil Society organisation, Banktrack, used a photo from this series on the cover of their report: Soft Commitments, Hard Lessons: an analysis of the Soft Commodities Compact.
