Michael Kirk (1996):
Land Tenure Development and Divestiture in Lao P.D.R.

6. Village Communities

So far there has been too little empirical data to be able to judge to what extent the compulsory measures for building up production cooperatives carry on a "spirit of the community" in the villages. It is clear that the power of the villages, represented by the various committees, is reckoned to be strong by donors and investors in forest plantations. They are tightly organized, show great solidarity outwardly, and represent their interests with great emphasis in dealings in production forests. In addition, the new forest laws demand the conservation of communal forests, village forests and other forms of communal property of land. Thus it can be expected through this and through the participatory process of land demarcation, that villages will be additionally empowered to re-define and to protect their property rights to land, also in the face of the Central State and logging companies. Projects and NGO's are often their allies in such cases.