Laos has experienced enormous deforestation and forest degradation since 1975. Despite years of diligent effort by the government of Laos to decrease deforestation, the trend has not reversed. Rather, there have been further increases in certain parts of the country at various degrees. This is evident by the growing concern about forestland encroachment within National Protected Areas (NPA), which have been designated as reserves for biodiversity conservation. To reduce forestland encroachment within NPAs and halt the decline of forest area in Laos, it is important to analyze the factors that contribute to forestland encroachment. This paper analyzes influencing factors of forestland encroachment by the local people within NPA, in the central part of Laos. Our study utilized both primary data from field surveys and secondary data from government official reports, as well as used previous research papers to explore the factors of forestland encroachment. Logistic regression model was then applied to analyze the factors of forestland encroachment in Phou Hin Poun NPA. The results of the study indicate that the forestland encroachment inside this NPA is strongly associated with villagers’ high demand for cassava growing, power balance between villages, and the number of household members. On the other hand, other factors such as educational level, legal familiarity, economic status, and the proximity of the owner’s land to forest did not significantly influence forestland encroachment on the study site. This study provides basic information to the relevant authorities who are responsible for taking effective measures against forestland encroachment inside the NPA, in Laos. The findings and knowledge gained from this study can be used by policy makers to solve the current issue of forestland encroachment as well as forest management in other countries with similar conditions.

Evaluating the progress towards global and national net-zero emissions goals requires a thorough assessment of historical emission levels and future targets. However, little attention has been paid to the actual reporting by the parties themselves. In this analysis, we examine parties reporting historical emissions and removals for Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector, as well as their commitments outlined in the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the Long-term Low Emission Development Strategies (LT-LEDS). Our analysis reveals a worldwide decrease in historical net AFOLU emissions, spanning from 1990 to 2020. This decline primarily relates to increased removals in the LULUCF sector in non-Annex I countries. In 1990, global AFOLU emissions were recorded at 4,400 MtCO₂eq, but by 2020, they had been reduced to approximately 2,200 MtCO₂eq. Looking ahead, countries have committed to further reduce global net AFOLU emissions by 600–1,700 MtCO₂eq by 2030 compared to 2020 levels. Moreover, fulfilment of the LT-LEDS commitment can provide an additional reduction of 2,300–3,400 MtCO₂eq. By integrating these datasets, the study provides insights into the progress towards achieving climate goals, highlighting the importance of land-based mitigation strategies. The findings reveal disparities between Annex I countries and Non-Annex I countries, particularly in the ambition of the commitments and objectives. As countries begin to submit their biennial transparency reports to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), our recommendation is for countries to enhance transparency in reporting and communicating their progress of implementation.

Integer programming has been extensively utilized for solving forest management planning or spatially constrained harvest scheduling problems in the past decades. In addition to determining the timing and location of harvest activities over the forest landscape, there are other environmental requirements that call for the setting aside of forest units for conservation purposes. The creation of contiguous forest stands for the protection of wildlife habitat protection can be one of those requirements. A review of existing literature on environmental management shows that a great deal of attention has been paid to nature reserve design in the selection of corridor connection among fragmented habitats. In this paper, we present a new exact optimization model which uses mixed integer programming framework to seek optimal corridor connection and the selection of suitable forage reserves from fragmented habitats, in a spatially constrained harvest scheduling problem under maximum opening size requirements, over space and time. We rely on the concept of the maximum flow problem to deal with spatial aggregation for forest units as well as corridor connection and forage reserve network. The proposed model does not need a priori enumeration and allows for multiple harvests over time. In addition to corridor connection, our novel approach takes into account forage reserves within an exact solution framework of an area restriction model.