Land for my grandchildren: land-use and tenure change in Ratanakiri 1989-2007

This paper draws on case studies from three communities in Ratanakiri to illustrate both the forces driving land-use and tenure change as well as how effective community stewardship can guide agricultural transitions. The study combines a time series of remotely sensed data from 1989 to 2006 to evaluate changes in land use, and relates this data to in-depth ground truth observations and social research from three villages: Krala, Leu Keun and Tuy. The remote sensing data indicates that in Krala, over the sixteen year study period, protected forest areas remained virtually intact, while total forest cover declined at a rate of only 0.86 per year.