A banana boom in Northern Lao was attracting some attention as people noticed the ill effects of what was assumed to be pesticide overuse. Coordinating with research and government agencies, evidence was gathered that helped bring about policy change.
As dam construction surges across Southeast Asia’s Mekong region, major changes in river flows, sedimentation, and fisheries are taking place. WLE Greater Mekong has been compiling a free and publicly available Dam Observatory that collects data on planned and constructed hydropower and irrigation dams in four Southeast Asian river basins.
Rivers in Myanmar face a range of serious threats – unsustainable hydropower development, pollution, resource exploitation and ad hoc development. But there is one issue that may undergird them all: lack of access to data.
Cassava, or Tapioca as it is more popularly known, is a very important staple crop in Vietnam, as well as most of Southeast Asia. This robust crop is facing some serious threats, in the form of pests, depleted soils, and unsustainable farming practices.
The WLE Focal Regions (2014-2016) were an ambitious attempt to apply the fundamental underpinnings of WLE at scale: sustainable intensification of agriculture and substantive investment in gender.
Resettlement schemes are meant to improve the lives of those who are resettled, but sometimes this change brings about livelihood problems for relocated villagers. Considering the gender dynamics of the groups being relocated may help.
Laos’ rivers sustain millions of people as sources of food and water; they also provide some of Laos’ most popular tourist attractions. Policy makers in the Nam Xong river basin are getting a clearer understanding of how potential directions and decisions could affect the future of their region thanks to a modelling project sponsored by WLE.
While WLE researchers face a variety of challenges collecting data and meeting objectives across the Greater Mekong region, the stakes are arguably highest for the partners involved in the ‘Working together for a better Kachin landscape’ project in northern Myanmar. Here, armed conflict is still common and the threat of continued fighting makes the target of equitable development an imperative.
In 2015, China initiated the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism (LMC). One year later, at the 2016 Greater Mekong Forum, LMC insiders reflected on what the LMC has accomplished, and how to move beyond the political aspects of the mechanism to focus on water issues and environmental questions.
Building a dam can provide tremendous amounts of energy and desperately-needed water for agriculture; at the same time, dams have significant impacts on ecosystems and livelihoods. A new tool from SERVIR-Mekong can help decision-makers understand the impacts of dam construction.
In June, WLE-Mekong published a series of maps identifying a massive range of dams across the major rivers of the Greater Mekong Subregion. In this interview excerpt, the second in a series of two, Thrive discusses how strong partnerships led to the creation of these maps and continues to identify hot spots and spaces for new research.
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