Community fisheries in Lao PDR : a survey of techniques and issues

The fishing techniques which can be found in Laos provide a good illustration of the principle that culture is not a static museum display but a living, evolving aspect of everyday life. In virtually every part of the country new gears are being developed or adopted and old gears are being abandoned or modified to […]

Saraca laotica (Fabaceae), a new species from Laos

A new species of Saraca (Fabaceae-Detarioideae), S. laotica, is described and illustrated from Laos. It is characterized by leaflets with (9–)11–20 pairs of secondary veins, relatively larger, persistent and showy bracts of 1.4–3.3 × 0.6–0.9 cm, calyx tube of 27–36 mm, 4 stamens, anthers 1.9 mm long, by which combination, it is clearly distinguished from […]

Khounkhao Sold Company Ltd.

Bouasanith (Nok), the owner of Khounkhao Sold Co., Ltd, founded the company in 2023 with a clear mission: reduce agricultural waste by optimizing how local resources are used. As an importer and exporter of food products, the company goes beyond traditional trade by transforming bananas—an abundant fruit in the region—into a wide range of high-value, […]

Mimi Phommaly

Kham Phet Garden was established in 2000 by her father and covers a total land area of 18 hectares. He was inspired after visiting Thailand and seeing the wide variety of fruits available there. At that time, Laos imported a large number of fruits from Thailand, which motivated him to introduce and plant different fruit […]

Sahai Coffee

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 […]