Economy
Sekong Province is one of the poorest provinces in Laos, second to only Houphanh Province. Infrastructure is poorly developed, with few having access to clean water and sanitation as of 2000, and the literacy rate is extremely low. Sekong Province is one of the most important coffee producing areas of Laos along with Saravane Province and Champasak Province. Sekong Province is Laos' main honey-producing area. Purpose-made tree cavities are a particular tree beekeeping methods practiced in three districts: Dakchung, Kalum, and Lama.
Remaining forest cover in Sekong Province is high. Government figures classify over 50% of the province’s land area as forest, the majority of it being mixed deciduous and semi-evergreen forest, but with pockets of dry dipterocarp forest along the Sekong river valley, and pine forest in the Dakchung highlands. Much of the natural forest in Sekong has never been subject to commercial logging, but this is changing fast. Commercial timber extraction has been expanding rapidly over the past decade in the province. There is tremendous and growing pressure on Sekong to log its forests – both from Vietnamese interests (where the wood furniture sector averaged 70% growth per year during 2000–2004) and from Lao companies (who face wood shortages because of dwindling stocks in lowland forests). The economic return from the forest resources of the province, as of 2003, was estimated to be in the range of US $ 398 to 525 per household, and more than the agricultural income. The revenue to the state from sale of timber was also very substantial, estimated to be US $ 10.35 per ha. The natural forests in the province are also helpful in carbon sequestration benefits estimated to be US$ 124 per ha and also in watershed improvements, by way of avoiding erosion and reducing flood incidence. Corruption of the provincial level authorities in Sekong province is a problem, and they have reportedly "actively undermined a successful donor-funded village participatory sustainable forest management initiative."
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Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)
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—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)