The idea of an investigation took shape when I came across a familiar Vietnamese company, with a track record of deforestation in Laos, investing in durian farms. Media reports documenting how Chinese investors had been pouring into the landlocked nation, hunting for fruit-growing land, further piqued my curiosity. Notably, this wave of investment followed a banana boom, which had already left northern Laos suffering from agricultural chemical pollution.
Durian, meanwhile, began grabbing headlines, but only for its economic promise for a debt-strapped country. The reporting gaps left me with questions: What lies behind the durian boom? And what has become of those banana plantations now? Seeking answers drove me into a months-long investigation supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network and Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, as part of the “Ground Truths” collaborative reporting project on soils.
After preliminary research, I arrived at the hypothesis: Mounting economic pressures are pushing Laos to overlook environmental consequences to lure foreign investment. This has enabled Vietnamese and Chinese companies to expand banana and durian plantations for China’s surging demand, fueling deforestation and soil degradation.
Methodology
Laos is a black box for information due to strict government control. That makes fieldwork decisive to collect evidence, refine the hypothesis, and steer the investigation. We split the work into two regions: North and South, based on regional cropping practices and land-leasing patterns.
The South: Durian plantations are spreading rapidly alongside banana expansion. Vietnamese and Chinese agribusinesses hold government-granted land concessions of up to 50 years.
The North: Chinese investors have leased existing agricultural land directly from residents. Bananas remain dominant, though many companies have pulled out since the COVID-19 outbreak. This opened a chance to test soil health on lands long exploited by banana monoculture.
THE SOUTH: Identifying plantations on forest land
First, we combed through state media to get a sense of the industry’s major players, noting reports of large-scale investments, government leaders visiting company sites, and meetings between company executives and central officials.
We then turned to Global Forest Watch to pinpoint deforestation hotspots. Champasak and Attapeu provinces topped the list in the South. Notably, this is also where the region’s biggest players—including Jiarun from China and Hoàng Anh Gia Lai and Thaco from Vietnam—have operated vast plantations.
We used Google Earth and Planet to scan conservation areas, protected forest, and riverbanks in Attapeu and Champasak. Historical satellite imagery and deforestation data helped us spot vast stretches of forest converted into plantations. Yet it couldn’t tell us who owned them. Field trips complemented our desk research: A few companies put up signboards at their plantation gate and operation offices in Lao and Chinese, allowing us to identify the companies. We then cross-checked with workers and truck drivers hauling bananas to confirm them.
After obtaining the plantations’ coordinates, we analyzed satellite images to track deforestation timing, patterns, and hectares cleared. For riverside plantations, we measured the distance from their borders to the river and found some of them had violated Lao laws, with buffers smaller than required, posing a risk of water contamination from agrochemicals.
THE NORTH: Soil testing
To assess soil health after years of banana monoculture, we sampled a plot that a company had returned to farmers about two years earlier.
The results, together with farmers’ firsthand cultivation accounts and our on-the-ground observations, were sent to soil scientists and ecologists from Singapore-based organization Living Soil Asia, as well as two U.S. universities: University of Florida and Indiana University. They concluded that the soil was depleted and had very likely become compacted, limiting root growth and reducing the movement of water and air needed for healthy crops. The scientists theorized that prolonged monocropping combined with the intensive chemical application probably played a significant role.
We also sent the scientists photos of fertilizer and pesticide packages for safety assessment. They warned that continued use without proper controls could lead to heavy metal contamination and the collapse of soil ecosystems.
Building a company database
We compiled a list of companies in both the North and South with documented environmental violations and conducted in-depth profile research on them. For signboards displaying only abbreviated company names, we cross-checked with our source in Vientiane to confirm their registered operating names in Laos.
We interviewed truck drivers to trace which Laos-China border checkpoints the banana boxes passed through. The brands and trademarks printed on the boxes tipped us off during our online research, helping us distinguish between Chinese companies with similar names in the fruit sector and, in some cases, trace where their products were sold.
We also dove deep into Douyin videos, as well as other open sources—from company recruitment posts to news reporting in Chinese and Laotian state media—to extract additional clues and corroborate information.
Tianyancha, a Chinese corporate database, helped us track the owners and other information behind companies, including their registered trademarks.
The trademarks allowed us to connect the companies with the banana products we saw in Laos and those on Douyin videos as the same trademarks printed on product packaging. Tianyancha only allows access within China so we used a VPN service called Kuaifan to access it.
Overcoming language barriers, seeking collaboration
Our team speaks Vietnamese, Chinese, and English, with support from local interpreters and drivers fluent in Lao, Vietnamese, H’Mong, and English. Still, tracking the remote areas often derailed us: Many villages aren’t shown on Google Maps under their Lao names, only as English versions romanized from Lao—often bearing little resemblance to what villagers actually call them. Worse still, some places do not exist on digital maps at all.
Filling the information gaps required more than fieldwork and desk research. We continuously sought support from individuals and organizations across a wide range of fields.
Amid the opacity of the Lao state and the Vietnamese and Chinese investors backed by their own governments, wrongdoings are easily shrouded. We were only able to shed light on them by reaching out to local partners and landowners, farmers, and plantation workers who shared their firsthand experiences and the history of their land, despite the risks. For their safety, we anonymized their names and photographed only their backs.
Main image by Savas Karaca on Unsplash.
Additional photos courtesy of Mekong Eye.
The author prefers to remain anonymous due to security concerns.
This article was originally published by the Pulitzer Center and is republished on IJNet.