Villages in the reservoir area
Sixteen villages comprising almost 4000 people are located within the boundary of the Nam
Theun 2 reservoir. Muang Nakay is the district headquarters and is located on Route 8B to
Lak Sao.
The majority of villagers still live a subsistence lifestyle based on rotational shifting
cultivation where they grow dry-land rice and various other food crops. Seven of the 16
villages have access to land suitable for paddy rice the preferred production system for
rice because of its higher yield. Protein is obtained primarily from small livestock, fish
from the Nam Theun, and for those villages adjacent to or in the NBCA, hunting of small
game. In a minority of villages, cash income is derived from labour at BPKP timber
processing facilities at Muang Nakay or Thakhek. For others, non-timber products from the
forests are sold to the BPKP. Buffalo and cattle rearing are also a source of income for
those villages with the necessary grazing land.
The people on the Nakay Plateau belong to 4 ethnolinguistic groupings: Bo, Katuic (Brou), Vietic, and Tai-Kadai. In late-1995 the identity of the Nakay villagers as ‘indigenous’ became a source of contention between the Lao government and the World Bank. The definition and identity of Indigenous peoples around the world has been complex and contested for its political and economic meanings. In following World Bank project development guidelines, the developers were obligated to consider the application of the Bank's Operational Directive on Indigenous Peoples and the development of an Indigenous Peoples Plan (IPP), an expensive additional study. The Bank’s wording in defining indigenous peoples is broad and includes conventional definitions of indigeneity primarily defined by their relationship to the land but also includes tribes, castes and ethnic minorities where identity is defined primarily by cultural traits such as religion, language and production systems that differ from predominant social groups in the country. In the case of the Nakay villagers, cultural traits differed considerably from that of the majority low-land Lao. Despite this, for 12 months the government refused to recognise the indigenous status of the villagers. Two reasons led to the impasse. First, the Lao constitution is ambiguous on the issue of ethnicity. It promotes a national culture while not defining it and it attempts to promote unity and grant equal identity to all ethnic groups. Given this, the World Bank’s requirement for an IPP may have been interpreted by the Lao
