There were reasons to believe that the GoL was becoming more accepting of the concept of indigenous peoples in the mid to late 2000s. In 2007, for example, they signed onto the UNDRIP, as did all other countries in Asia, and in 2008 and 2009 the United National Development Programme (UNDP) collaborated with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the LFNC to recognize “Indigenous Peoples’ Day” in Vientiane, the capital city (IWGIA 2010; Phongkhao 2008; Vientiane Times 2009). Since then, however, no further government-endorsed celebrations have been permitted. Moreover, over the last few years, the GoL has increasingly objected to the use of the term “indigenous peoples” in project documents prepared by NGOs, international organizations, and donors, typically insisting on its replacement with the term “ethnic peoples.” Furthermore, whereas at least two local organizations linked to particular ethnic groups were registered in around 2009 (IWGIA 2011), the GoL is not presently allowing any new civil society organizations, or non-profit associations (NPAs) as they are known in Laos, to register if they have links to ethnic groups. Illustrative of this trend, on 27 April 2012 the Interior Division of Champasak Province, in southern Laos, denied the request made by a group of indigenous peoples to establish an NPA linked to “ethnic groups” in the province. The reason given for this denial was that the NPA would not be related to vocational training, and was therefore prohibited due to local interpretation of the Lao law. In addition, written correspondence stated that the LFNC and other GoL officials were sufficiently positioned to work with the different ethnic groups, thus making such an NPA unnecessary (Saisopha 2012).
The main organizations that have been at the forefront of promoting an indigenous agenda in Laos have been NGOs, multilateral banks, and organizations within the United Nations system (Baird 2015). NGOs have introduced and repeatedly used the concept of indigenous peoples through various interactions with indigenous peoples and their ethnic Lao and international supporters, and have provided funding and other forms of assistance for particular natural resource management initiatives, where indigenous peoples’ rights are the main focus. In recent years, this has included providing support for local chapters of regional initiatives such as the Indigenous Knowledge and Peoples Network (IKAP) and the Co-Management Learning Network (CMLN).10 Both IKAP and CMLN in Laos have collaborated with the Global Association for People and the Environment (GAPE), a Canadian NGO. IKAP has also partnered with local organizations interested in indigenous knowledge issues. With regard to CMLN, GAPE has been working with local governments and indigenous peoples, located within and adjacent to the Xe Pian National Protected Area in the southernmost part of the country, in order to improve relations between indigenous peoples and government, and to provide indigenous peoples with more of a voice in managing the National Protected Area (Baird 2015).
Both the Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), the main NGOs supporting the indigenous movement in Asia at regional levels, have taken a strong interest in natural resource management issues of various types, including those in recent years related to dramatic increases in large-scale land concessions to private corporations and other forms of land grabbing (NGO Forum on Cambodia 2006; see also Baird 2010, 2011a, 2013; Keating 2013; Neef, Touch, and Chiengthong 2013; Swift 2013), conflicts associated with protected area management (Colchester and Erni 1999; Howitt, Connell, and Hirsch 1996), and climate change mitigation measures related to land and forest management (AIPP et al. 2010). Indicative of this, the IWGIA has given GAPE funding to provide indigenous peoples facing critical land alienation with basic legal training, so as to support their efforts to both resist attempted land concessions and negotiate better deals when resistance is not viable. Thus, much of the NGO support for the concept of indigenous peoples in Laos has been linked to natural resource management issues of various types.
Multilateral banks, such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), have also played important but quite different roles in introducing the concept of indigenous peoples to Laos and other countries in Asia (ADB 1998, 2002; World Bank 2005). The World Bank and ADB have both adopted operational directives on indigenous peoples that have been significant in promoting a global concept of indigeneity in Asia. These policies stipulate that if development projects supported by the banks have the potential to negatively impact on indigenous peoples, the proponents of the projects are required to develop “Indigenous Peoples’ Plans” in order to ensure that indigenous issues are being adequately considered and mitigated. As the ADB states on its website:
ADB’s indigenous peoples safeguards aim to ensure that the design and implementation of projects foster full respect for indigenous peoples’ identity, dignity, human rights, livelihood systems, and cultural uniqueness as defined by the indigenous peoples themselves so that they receive culturally appropriate social and economic benefits, are not harmed by the projects, and can participate actively in projects that affect them.11
Despite these policies, the insistence on Indigenous Peoples’ Plans has not had a great deal of measurable impact in Laos, due to the fact that the banks have done little to promote the concept of indigenous peoples in the public realm, leaving the concept as one that exists internally in the implementation of their own operational project policies. Moreover, some of the projects they have supported have not appropriately recognized groups of indigenous peoples (Manorom, Baird, and Shoemaker 2017).
The third organizational group that has had an influence on the indigenous movement in Laos is the United Nations. They have supported the development of the concept of indigeneity in Laos through the ILO Convention 169 (ILO 1989), the UNDRIP, and most recently through the United Nations Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (UN-REDD) program. In particular, UN-REDD, together with various international donors and NGOs, has attempted to introduce “Free Prior and Informed Consent” (FPIC) to Laos, a concept initially intended to ensure that indigenous peoples are fully informed and consulted about, and that they are in favor of, pertinent REDD+ projects before they proceed. Indeed, Article 19 of the UNDRIP requires governments to “consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.” However, since 2009, FPIC has not only been applied (in Laos and other countries) in cases of indigenous peoples affected by REDD+ projects, but also for other forest-dependent people regardless of their ethnicity or status in terms of indigeneity (GIZ 2011). In any case, the GoL would not have allowed FPIC if it had only been applicable to indigenous peoples. However, the GoL has approved guidelines for consulting with people from ethnic groups who have been negatively impacted by development projects (Vongsack 2013), so there does appear to be some development in the ability to differentiate between ethnic groups, provided that the concept of indigenous peoples is not applied.
Conclusions
The key conclusion when it comes to considering the impacts of the concept of indigenous peoples in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos is that it is a concept strongly associated with nature–society relations. These include land and natural resource management issues, albeit in different ways, and with varying levels of impact in the three countries. It is also clear that, in general, the impact of the newly introduced concept of indigeneity has been uneven, not only between the countries discussed in this chapter, but within each of the countries as well, based on a number of political, geographical, economic, and historical factors. This certainly has a lot to do with the fact that the government of Cambodia recognizes the concept of indigenous peoples, while the governments of Thailand and Laos do not. However, the policies of Laos and Thailand with regards to indigenous peoples also differ significantly. Thailand has designated special cultural protection zones based on ethnic differentiation, while Laos, despite its refusal to develop policies that differentiate based