Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-190

The central highlands of Vietnam and Cambodia have witnessed a significant increase of rubber tree plantations over the last 10 years and a profound reorganization of its economy and territory. The rubber booms differ significantly between the two countries, but they are also strongly intermingled in a context of increasing regional integration. The process is driven by global markets and powerful foreign actors such as China and Malaysia, but national governments do play a key role with respect to land access and land use change. 'White Gold' and new eldorados are not only an economic issue; what is at stake is also political influence and power relations within the Greater-Mekong sub-region, as illustrated by massive transnational large-scale land acquisitions. To better understand the current agrarian transition, the authors of this book have sought to provide its historical background, back to colonial and socialist-experience times. The books also analyses the capacity of local populations to resist to new comers in search for land, and the sustainability of family-based low-input labour-intensive livelihoods that are evidently threatened by large-scale, high-input and mechanized production systems.

Francais

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