Featured Projects
Our projects tackle questions where the Mekong Region and the wider world meet: where global climate finance lands on the ground, where international trade, regulations and environmental flows reshape national economic development and local livelihoods, and where decisions about land and forests determine who benefits from growth. Each project pairs rigorous research with direct engagement with the people who are affected and those who make and implement policy.
1. Forest Carbon Investments in the Mekong
Independent assessment of the forest carbon programmes in the Mekong countries, and whether they deliver real, lasting and fair climate outcomes.
What we’re doing. Working with investors and project developers, we assess forest carbon projects and programmes that public and private actors are developing in the Mekong to help meet investor countries’ climate targets. We examine the questions that determine whether a forest carbon credit is credible: Are emission reductions real and additional? Will they last? Do they simply push deforestation elsewhere? Who holds rights to the land and the carbon, who bears the costs and who shares in the benefits? Our findings are used to inform policy debate in investor and in host countries alike.
Why it matters. Under the Paris Agreement’s Article 6, countries can count emission reductions achieved abroad through verified carbon credits toward their own targets. If these credits are robust, they channel finance to forest communities and deliver real climate benefits. If they are not, they risk overstating progress on climate targets while undermining the land rights of the people who live in and depend on these forests. With the rules for international carbon trading now being put into practice, getting the first generation of transactions right sets the standard for those that follow.
By the numbers
- 746,000 hectares — tree cover lost across Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam in 2025, including 154,000 hectares of primary forest.
- At least four buyer governments — Japan, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and Switzerland now hold carbon-trading agreements or memoranda with Mekong countries under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, with Japan’s Joint Crediting Mechanism active in all five.
- More than US$200 million — forest carbon results-based payments committed to Lao PDR and Vietnam alone since 2020, from the World Bank, the Green Climate Fund and the LEAF Coalition.
2. Tea forests of the upper Mekong: biodiversity, heritage and livelihoods
Research with one of China’s leading botanical institutes on the ancient tea landscapes where the tea plant first emerged, and on how they can sustain both biodiversity and the communities who tend them.
What we’re doing. Led by our China Programme, we are studying tea in one of its main places of origin: the mountains of upland of Laos. Our research examines the traditional forest-tea systems managed by local and ethnic minority communities for generations, the genetic and ecological diversity they hold, and how growing market demand, land-use change and climate change are reshaping them. The aim is practical: to identify policies and market arrangements that that both protect tea forest landscapes and build resilient livelihoods for smallholders.
Why it matters. Tea is the world’s most consumed beverage after water, and most of it is grown by smallholders. The upper Mekong is the cradle of the tea plant, and its ancient tea forests are a living gene bank for a global crop facing climate stress. They are also among the region’s most successful examples of agroforestry that supports both livelihoods and biodiversity. Rising prices for “ancient tree” tea bring new income, but also pressure to intensify, clear surrounding forest and replace diverse systems with plantations. Understanding how to keep these landscapes intact is a question for conservation, cultural heritage and rural development at once.
By the numbers
- More than 70% of Laos’s tea resource is wild forest tea; ancient trees make up another 5%.
- 8,500 households grow tea, and around 17,000 households live in tea-producing zones across 300+ villages in northern Laos.
- US$5.2 million was the peak value of recorded tea exports, in 2022. Exports fell 62% during COVID-19 border closures but have since recovered. Informal and un-recorded tea sales are substantial. Lao farmers capture a very small share of this value.
- US$1.10/kg is the average value of recorded Lao tea exports. Speciality wild tea from Phongsaly has sold for up to US$370/kg.
- 68% of recorded export value went to China in 2023, mostly as raw tea for processing into Pu’er tea.
3. Rubber, deforestation and trade: ASEAN’s readiness for new import rules
Helping ASEAN countries and their millions of smallholder rubber farmers stay in global markets as major importers introduce deforestation-free and legality requirements.
What we’re doing. We are working with the ASEAN Member States to meet the demand-side import regulations now taking shape in its major markets: the European Union, the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China. The work analyzes trade flows, legal frameworks and governance conditions and assess where national traceability, land-tenure and legality systems already meet these requirements, where the gaps are, and what governments, industry and development partners can do to close them without excluding smallholders from the supply chain.
Why it matters. Natural rubber is in every tyre, glove and medical device, and almost all of it comes from Southeast Asia. Most is grown by smallholders on plots of a few hectares, often without formal land titles or records of where their latex goes. As importing countries move from voluntary pledges to binding due-diligence laws, such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), producers must prove their rubber did not come from recently deforested land. Done well, this can reward sustainable farmers and slow forest loss. Done badly, it risks shutting out the smallest and poorest producers while trade simply shifts to less regulated markets.
By the numbers
- 90% — Southeast Asia’s share of global natural rubber production; about 85% of the world’s natural rubber is grown by some 6 million smallholders.
- ASEAN countries export roughly US$12 billion of natural rubber a year, with Thailand and Indonesia accounting for around two-thirds of that.
- More than 4 million hectares — forest cleared for rubber in Southeast Asia since 1993, two to three times more than figures previously used to set policy.
4. Land Governance and Tenure Security in the Mekong
Connecting evidence, civil society and the research community with decision-makers to secure land and forest rights for smallholder farmers across Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
What we’re doing. We produce evidence on tenure security, customary and collective land rights, land-use planning and responsible agricultural investment, and we bring that evidence to the people who shape policy. Just as importantly, we create the spaces where civil society organizations, independent experts and academics can engage directly with ministries, legislators and other political actors, so that reform reflects the realities of the farmers and communities it affects.
Why it matters. Land is the foundation of rural livelihoods, food security and cultural identity across the Mekong, and the region’s forests are among its most valuable natural assets. Since the early 2000s, governments have granted millions of hectares of farmland and forest to domestic and foreign investors, often on land already used by smallholders and ethnic minority communities. Secure, recognized land rights are among the strongest protections against dispossession, and evidence from around the world links community tenure to better forest outcomes. Getting land governance right is also central to the region’s ability to attract investment that is responsible, and to meet new global market and climate commitments.
The political economy of resource governance in the Mekong countries
Partners: The Mekong Collective, with university partners in the region and internationally
Analysis of the interests, institutions and power relations that drive decisions about land, natural resources and investment, so that development partners and reformers can work with the grain of political reality.
What we’re doing. Good evidence alone rarely changes policy; it has to reach the right people at the right moment, in a form that fits their interests and constraints. Our political economy work maps how decisions are actually made in the Mekong countries: who holds influence, how state, party, business and foreign actors interact, and where windows for reform open and close.
Why it matters. The Mekong countries are going through rapid and sometimes turbulent change: debt and currency crises, administrative restructuring, conflict in Myanmar, and intensifying competition for influence between China, the United States, Japan and others. Development programmes and investments that ignore these dynamics routinely fail, or deliver benefits to the few rather than the many. Clear, independent analysis of how power works helps governments, donors and investors make realistic choices, and helps civil society find openings for reform.