Sahai Coffee: Ethical Coffee from Luang Prabang

Sahai Lao Coffee Roastery is a community driven initiative that empowers local farmers across Northern Laos. Sahai promotes sustainable practices by training growers in selective hand-picking and responsible processing methods. They help partner communities to master each production step while protecting their ancestral lands. In 2012, Alex Chitdara, one of the two co-founders of Sahai […]

Annotated checklist of the terrestrial molluscs from Laos (Mollusca, Gastropoda)

The land area of Laos is composed of a large variety of undisturbed habitats, such as high mountainous areas, huge limestone karsts and the lower Mekong Basin. Therefore, Laos is expected to have a high species diversity, especially for the land snails. However, with respect to research on malacology, Laos is probably the least well-researched […]

Cash crops in the uplands: the cardamom experienc

Farmers are often blamed for destroying tropical forests, especially in the Lao PDR. Converting shifting cultivation into cash crop-based agriculture is recurrently presented as the solution merging forest protection and poverty alleviation. However, many attempts in the recent past have ended in failure. The Rural Development Project of Phongsaly District (PDDP) has tried to introduce […]

NAFRI Research Report: Farmers’ access to credit in the Lao PDR

The agricultural sector plays an important role in the development of the Lao PDR. In 2017, the growth rate of GDP was 6.9%. The growth rate of the agricultural sector increased by 2.9% contributing to 17.7% of the country’s GDP. In addition, the agriculture sector contributed to 60.8% of total employment. The financial sector largely […]

New records of ferns in the flora of Laos

Fieldwork in Lao PDR during 2007-2008 resulted in the discovery of 15 unrecorded fern species among the flora of Lao PDR. All have been identified in other countries in southeastern Asia, as well as from other tropical areas. The species are as follows: Asplenicaceae (Asplenium delavayi, A. rockier), Athyriaceae (Anisocampium cuspidatum), Dennstaedtiaceae (Microlepia hookeriana, Pteridium […]

Plants without borders: new records of two presumed Thai endemic Gesneriaceae in Laos

Botanical expeditions in Laos through a collaboration between Thailand (Queen Sirikit Botanic Garden) and Laos (Pha Tad Ke Botanic Garden) to document plant diversity and collect plants for ex situ conservation, led to the discovery of two species of Gesneriaceae previously believed to be endemic to Thailand: Damrongia trisepala (Barnett) D.J.Middleton & A.Weber and Didymocarpus […]