Ban Thapene is a village of Luang Prabang District, Luang Prabang Province,

Laos Laos, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic (LPDR), is the only landlocked country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by Myanmar and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the southeast, and Thailand to the west and ...

. The village was first established about 130 years ago by Kha Hok families, one of the

Khmu The Khmu (; Khmu: ; or ; ; ; ; ; ) are an ethnic group of Southeast Asia. The majority (88%) live in northern Laos where they constitute the largest minority ethnic group, comprising eleven percent of the total population. Alternative hi ...

ethnic sub-groups. Like many other upland inhabitants in Luang Prabang, the livelihood and culture of

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

s such as

Lao Loum The Lao Loum (; , , ) is an official Lao People's Democratic Republic designation for lowland dwelling Tai peoples, including the majority Lao people. The Lao Loum, literally meaning 'lowland Lao', are the inhabitants of the river valleys and ...

, Kha Hok, Yao and

Hmong Hmong may refer to: * Hmong people, an ethnic group living mainly in Southwest China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand * Hmong cuisine * Hmong customs and culture ** Hmong music ** Hmong textile art * Hmong language, a continuum of closely related ...

in Ban Thapene is dependent on

natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...

Geography

Ban Thapene is about 29 kilometers southwest of Luang Prabang. The topography of Ban Thapene is composed of mountains, small valleys, streams and

waterfall A waterfall is any point in a river or stream where water flows over a vertical drop or a series of steep drops. Waterfalls also occur where meltwater drops over the edge of a tabular iceberg or ice shelf. Waterfalls can be formed in seve ...

s with elevations ranging between 450–930 metres. The village is adjacent to Ban U and Nong Heo villages to the north, Ban Khokmanh and Pa Si villages to the west, Ban Yang village to the south and Long Lao Kau and Long Lao May villages to the east.

Ethnicity and demography

Ban Thapene is home to groups such as Lao Loum, Kha Hok, Yao and Hmong. In December 2016, Ban Thapene had 139 households with 637 persons, in which Kha Hok and Lao Loum were the majority.

Natural resources

Total natural area of Ban Thapene which was legitimized by local authorities with support of SPERI and CCFD in 2016 is approximately 1,775.59

hectare The hectare (; SI symbol: ha) is a non-SI metric unit of area equal to a square with 100-metre sides (1 hm2), that is, square metres (), and is primarily used in the measurement of land. There are 100 hectares in one square kilometre. ...

s. This area includes different categories of forest and land, e.g., community spirit preserve forestland, community protected forestland,

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

and family usage forestland,

agricultural land Agricultural land is typically land ''devoted to'' agriculture, the systematic and controlled use of other organism, forms of lifeparticularly the rearing of livestock and production of cropsto produce food for humans. It is generally synonymous ...

, housing and infrastructure land (e.g.,

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

clinic A clinic (or outpatient clinic or ambulatory care clinic) is a health facility that is primarily focused on the care of outpatients. Clinics can be privately operated or publicly managed and funded. They typically cover the primary care needs ...

and

wat A wat (, ; , ; , ; ; , ) is a type of Buddhist and Hindu temple in Cambodia, Laos, East Shan State (Myanmar), Yunnan (China), the Southern Province of Sri Lanka, and Thailand. Etymology The word ''wat'' is borrowed from the Sanskrit ''v ...

), tourism land, and military land. Ban Thapene has an inter-connection of

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

, small streams and

. The 60 meter-high Kuang Si Fall is a part of the Huoi Si stream, which has its source in the Phu Nam Ork Mount in the

Luang Prabang Range The Luang Prabang Range (, ), named after Luang Prabang, is a mountain range straddling northwestern Laos and Northern Thailand. Most of the range is located in Sainyabuli Province (Laos), as well as Nan and Uttaradit Provinces (Thailand), w ...

. The Huoi Si stream flows through Nam Uok and Thapene villages before flowing into the

Mekong River The Mekong or Mekong River ( , ) is a transboundary river in East Asia and Southeast Asia. It is the world's List of rivers by length, twelfth-longest river and List of longest rivers of Asia, the third-longest in Asia with an estimated l ...

. Natural resources, notably forests play a vital role to the material and spiritual values of the ethnic groups in Ban Thapene. Forest and land, especially the spirit forests like Nam Ork Mount and Hua Tat Mount, are spaces for ethnic groups in Ban Thapene to practice their customary beliefs via yearly and seasonal

ceremonies A ceremony (, ) is a unified ritualistic event with a purpose, usually consisting of a number of artistic components, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin, via the Latin . Religious and civil (secular) ceremoni ...

to worship the nature spirit. Ban Thapene has established its community regulation based on customary law and government policies in order to preserve such

livelihood A person's livelihood (derived from ''life-lode'', "way of life"; cf. OG ''lib-leit'') refers to their "means of securing the basic necessities (food, water, shelter and clothing) of life". Livelihood is defined as a set of activities essential ...

and cultural sites for future generations.

Economy

Before 1994, the livelihood of families in Ban Thapene was largely based on natural resources, upland farming or rotational

shifting cultivation Shifting cultivation is an agricultural system in which plots of land are cultivated temporarily, then abandoned while post-disturbance fallow vegetation is allowed to freely grow while the cultivator moves on to another plot. The period of cul ...

, planting wet rice, raising cows and buffalo, and collecting

non-timber forest product Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are useful foods, substances, materials and/or commodities obtained from forests other than timber. Harvest ranges from wild collection to farming. They typically include game animals, fur-bearers, nuts, see ...

s. Afterward, because of the Lao policy of banning shifting cultivation and establishing protected areas to preserve the Kuang Si watershed and develop the Kuang Si tourism area, traditional practices have been partly converted to small-scale tourism services near the Kuang Si Falls. By 2014, some families in Ban Thapene still keep plots for

farming Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created ...

. Ban Thapene plans these plots into the community managed area for agricultural production. Besides the regular income generated from tourism services, villagers also make items, e.g., traditional brocade, clothing, baskets, and wooden arts for selling as souvenirs to tourists. These products are largely made from non-timber forest products collected from community use forests and family

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

s after the

fallow Fallow is a farming technique in which arable land is left without sowing for one or more vegetative cycles. The goal of fallowing is to allow the land to recover and store Organic compound, organic matter while retaining moisture and disrupting ...

period.

References

{{coord missing, Laos Populated places in Luang Prabang Province