.:: Lao Knowledge Base on Conservation Agriculture ::.
Nowadays, the South of Sayaboury province displays a marked degradation of the cultivated ecosystem, the almost total disappearance of trees from the landscape, and destruction of the downstream road and rice growing infrastructures. Woodland zones, serving as a biological filter along rivers, have entirely disappeared from these environments.Thought needs to be given on a provincial and national level to the management of these landscape units, based on: - (re)constitution of gallery forests (multiple species incorporating medicinal plants, timber and non‑wood products) to help protect water courses and recreate a powerful natural filter limiting the risks of pollution by pesticides and suspended particles,
- establishment of living hedges around plots using fast-growing species with multiple uses (paper mulberry, elephant grass, Acacia sp.) and maintaining woodland corridors essential for the movement of wildlife,
- protection of weak zones upstream of these catchment areas by reforestation and use of species with a strong covering potential (Brachiaria sp., Stylosanthes guianensis, etc.),
- elaboration and dissemination, on a landscape unit scale, of diversified direct seeding no-till agriculture systems incorporating livestock,
- effective implementation, within communities in the field, of legislation regulating the use of phytosanitary products.
