Restoration 
Plantations and tree crop commodities 
Enhanced nutrition and food security 
Biodiversity, safeguarding and conservation 
Nationally determined contributions 
Bioenergy and biomaterials 
Blue carbon and peatlands 
Climate change adaptation 
Landscape governance 
Gender 
Silvopastoral systems 
Market-based agroforestry-forestry 
Farm-forest policy interface 
Agroecology 
Livelihood trajectory modelling and assessment 
Inclusive finance and business models 
Innovating finance for sustainable landscapes 
Public and private commitments to zero deforestation 
Orphan tree crops 
Effectiveness of approaches to sustainable supply 
Quality of FTA research for development 
Sentinel landscapes 
Foresight 
Seeds and seedlings delivery systems 
Smallholder tree-crop commodities 
Authors: Kenney-Lazar, M.; Wong, G.
Key points
- The opportunities provided by rubber cultivation in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) have been offset by sustainability challenges, such as low prices, food insecurity, land expropriation, deforestation and a loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.
- Smallholder rubber has had the greatest success in alleviating poverty while limiting environmental impacts and should be the preferred form of rubber production.
- Improved and extensive credit, technical and extension services are needed to support a robust smallholder sector that cultivates rubber in ways that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.
- Large-scale land concessions for rubber should be limited and highly regulated to prevent expropriation of rural people’s lands, unfair compensation, deforestation, agro-chemical pollution and exploitative labor practices
Series: CIFOR Infobrief no. 153
Publisher: Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor, Indonesia
Publication Year: 2016
