This five-part series explores how the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption could increase the demand for rubber—a commodity that has historically driven deforestation and land grabbing across the Mekong region. Experts say the EV transition will boost rubber demand, as EVs need specialized tires that can bear heavier vehicle weight and high torque.
This matters to the Mekong region. Our data analysis shows that Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam together supply nearly 50% of the world’s natural rubber. About 70% of global rubber goes into tires. Without effective traceability in place, deforestation and land conflicts, many of which are ongoing and affecting the lives and livelihoods of local communities—are unlikely to be solved.
Part 1: Mekong’s ‘white gold’ rush amid a global EV boom
Part 2: Cash from rubber comes at the cost of Laos’ forests
Part 3: In Cambodia, our land became their rubber plantation
Part 4: Myanmar’s upland plantations worsen border floods
Part 5: Mekong’s push for responsible rubber and tire production
Story by Mekong Eye’s investigation team
This series was produced in partnership with Earth Journalism Network and the Pulitzer Center
Electric vehicles (EVs) are on the rise — from Bangkok to Hanoi to Vientiane — promising a cleaner future as part of the global shift to clean energy, with more than 17 million electric cars sold worldwide in 2024.
But there is still a cost to pay for these ‘green cars’. With their heavier battery weight and higher torque, EVs wear out their tires faster than gasoline-powered cars, and therefore consume more tires throughout their lifetime.
In every tire is natural rubber, the key raw material that ensures durability, elasticity and strength.
The growing demand for EV tires has had significant implications for the Mekong region — Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam — which produces about 50% of the world’s natural rubber and hosts major plants for multinational tire manufacturers and EV makers.
Since the early 2000s, monoculture rubber plantations have expanded rapidly across the Mekong region, replacing forests with uniform rows of rubber trees. Despite falling prices, expansion has continued in the last decade as demand remains strong.
Losing forests means losing biodiversity and natural carbon sinks, which the world relies on to fight climate change. Clearing land to plant rubber also exposes the soil, increasing the risk of erosion and flash floods.
In many cases, rubber plantations were established through long-term land concessions granted by governments, handing over forests and farmland to investors.
Local communities and indigenous people have lost access to their land and forests, often without consent or adequate compensation. Many have been forced to leave their homes in search of alternative livelihoods.
As the world becomes more aware of the environmental and social costs of past plantations, efforts are being made to establish traceability and accountability in rubber supply chains. However, significant gaps remain.
Mekong Eye, in collaboration with media partners, the Earth Journalism Network and the Pulitzer Center, traces how problematic rubber can reach major tire companies supplying EV makers globally, and explores efforts to improve the rubber supply chain.
Part 1: Mekong’s ‘white gold’ rush amid a global EV boom
Rubber from the Mekong powers global EV tires, yet its murky supply chain demands stronger traceability to ensure a just energy transition
The streets of Laos’ capital Vientiane are lined with billboards promoting Chinese electric vehicles (EVs). Laos neither makes EVs nor car tires, yet its forests are being cleared for rubber – the raw material for making tires – while locals tap rubber trees for Chinese and Vietnamese companies.
Proudly calling itself the “battery of Asia” because of its many hydropower plants, Laos’ EV push is driven by economics rather than climate concerns. Imported fuel is expensive, and recurring shortages have made imported electric cars an appealing alternative.
Between 2022 and 2024, the number of registered four-wheel EVs in Laos almost quadrupled, with projections reaching 15,000 by 2030.
Laos, like many countries worldwide, has joined the accelerating global shift to EVs, a transition driven by both climate commitments and economic goals.
This boom has brought opportunities to both smallholders of rubber plantations and large companies in the five Mekong countries – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Viet Nam – as the region supplies half the world’s natural rubber.
Yet, underneath this so-called clean energy transition, extractive practices such as deforestation and land grabbing, connected to natural rubber production in the region, continue to perpetuate.
Fast electrification
Five years ago, Viet Nam had almost no EV registrations. Now, due to the rise of domestic brands like VinFast and the gradual shift towards restrictions on gasoline vehicles, nearly one in five new cars sold in 2024 were electric.
Visitors examine and test drive electric vehicles from Chinese brands at the 2024 Bangkok International Motor Show at Impact Arena in Nonthaburi, Thailand. Chinese EVs accounted for 80% of EV sales in the country. PHOTO: Tananchai Keawsowattana, Thai News Pix
Globally, EVs are quickly taking over a steadily expanding car fleet. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report, more than 17 million new electric cars were sold in 2024, a sharp rise from 2.1 million in 2018. Today, one in every five new cars sold is an electric vehicle.
In Thailand, the expansion of Chinese EV manufacturers has pushed the share to roughly one in every 7.5 new cars.
China drives much of this surge, accounting for nearly two-thirds of global EV sales. Almost one in two new cars sold there is now electric, according to the IEA. Most of the remaining push comes from Europe and the U.S., where EVs make up roughly one in five and one in 10 new car sales, respectively.
Made with Flourish
This exponential growth is driving demand not only for scarce critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, and cobalt, but also a rising appetite for natural rubber.
With their heavy batteries and higher torque, EVs wear out their tires roughly 30-40% faster than gasoline-powered cars, according to a Coherent Market Insights analysis. Global EV tire sales, worth US$3.4 billion in 2024, are projected to increase at least fourfold by 2031.
Observers such as Thai Krungsri Bank’s research unit have pointed to the global EV boom as one of the main drivers of rising natural rubber demand.
Natural rubber is used in various industries, including automotive, medical supplies, and consumer goods. In China, 76% of the rubber is allocated to tire manufacturing, a trend similar to the global trend, where approximately 70% of rubber is used in the tire industry.
In the Mekong region, rubber production has increased slightly in major producers such as Thailand and Viet Nam, as the sector faces land conversion from agriculture to urban areas, more frequent droughts, and labor shortages among rubber tappers.
However, data from the Food and Agriculture Organization shows that production has nearly doubled in Myanmar, grown almost fivefold in Cambodia, and surged more than eightfold in Laos in the past decade.
Where the white gold lies
As countries cash in on increasing demand for tires and the subsequent rubber rush, the rewards are far from equal.
According to UN Comtrade data, global exports of natural rubber were worth US$13.6 billion in 2024, tire exports at US$96 billion and EV exports at a whopping US$128.5 billion.
China bought more than 45% of the world’s 2023 rubber production, exported 45% of the world’s car tires and produced 70% of the world’s EVs in 2024 – almost all of which were sold domestically.
rubber Laos
Workers load processed rubber at a Chinese-owned factory in Long District, northern Luang Namtha Province, Laos. The rubber industry in northern Laos is largely shaped by contract farming schemes with Chinese rubber companies. PHOTO: Thanh Hue
Thailand, aiming to become an EV regional automotive hub, produced more than one-third of the world’s 2023 natural rubber and was the second-largest net exporter of tires in 2024.
With the Thai government’s incentives to attract the foreign automotive industry since the 1990s, the country hosts many multinational tire giants, including Michelin, Bridgestone, Maxxis, Yokohama, Continental, and Goodyear – as well as Chinese tire makers such as ZC Rubber, Linglong, Chengshan, Double Coin Tire Group, and Xinyuan Rubber.
Many Chinese EV makers have also established presences in Thailand, including BYD, Great Wall Motor, GAC Aion, and Chery, driven by the government’s incentives such as tax and import duty exemptions.
With a growing domestic EV industry, Viet Nam is among the world’s major producers of natural rubber and net exporters of car tires.
Since 2018, the UN Comtrade data shows that it has imported more rubber than it exported – mainly from Cambodia and Laos, where its state-owned firm Viet Nam Rubber Group dominates rubber production through long-term land acquisitions.
EV makers from Germany, South Korea, Mexico, and Japan capture the most value, accounting for more than half of total exports and selling primarily to the EU, UK, and North America.
At the lower end of the value chain, Cambodia, Myanmar, and Laos remain net exporters of raw rubber – earning the least while facing rampant human rights and environmental abuses from the past two decades of plantation expansion.
A dubious supply chain
While EV consumers are praised for driving the energy transition, electric car production risks leaving a heavy environmental footprint if producers do not source tires ethically and responsibly.
Public reporting by tire makers rarely distinguishes between the production of EVs versus conventional wheels, complicating efforts to track supply chains of green transport. EV makers, on the other hand, rely on tire companies to establish policies for ethical and responsible sourcing of materials.
In the Mekong region, rubber cultivation has been historically linked to deforestation, land grabbing, and soil erosion.
In Laos and Cambodia, where public participation is restricted, large-scale concessions have emptied vast tracts of forests and displaced communities. In war-torn Myanmar, the expansion of rubber in the north has stripped hillsides bare and worsened soil erosion.
Converting pristine forests into vast rubber plantations releases arsenic and other heavy metals that can contaminate rivers, said Wan Wiriya, an associate professor at Chiang Mai University who monitors river quality in Myanmar and Thailand.
Monoculture rubber plantations utilize significant chemical fertilizers, while rubber processing requires large quantities of strong acid, which further pollutes the environment, Wan added.
As the forest disappears and waterways become polluted, ethnic minorities are losing their food security, said Ian G. Baird, a political ecologist at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who has studied the rubber industry in northeastern Cambodia and southern Laos.
According to Baird, many are left with no choice but to clear parts of the remaining forest to maintain their livelihoods.
“These are not short-term damages,” he said. “The consequences will unfold over years, and many generations are being forced to bear them.”
Sourcing ethical rubber
In many parts of the region, it is challenging to determine which rubber is ethically sourced due to several factors, including complex layers of rubber trading, weak registration systems, and land conflict.
In Thailand, smallholders produce approximately 90% of the total natural rubber supply. Many of them have not yet registered or are in the process of registering their farms to prove their rubber is not linked to deforestation.
Natural rubber passes through various layers of middlemen, who may or may not be registered, and domestic processors, before reaching the major manufacturers.
“We can trace from registered sellers to registered buyers, covering roughly 50% of the market,” said Suphachai Khangkhun, director of the Rubber Authority of Thailand’s northern region. “Our traceability ends at the rubber processors. It cannot go beyond that.”
A 2023 Nature study estimated that more than 600,000 hectares of deforestation in Thailand were attributed to rubber between 2001 and 2016, although the exact figure remains debated.
laos deforestation
A hill in Long District, Luang Namtha Province, Laos, has been cleared for a rubber plantation. Rubber cultivation has historically—and continues to be—associated with deforestation in the Mekong region. PHOTO: Thanh Hue
The challenges in Cambodia and Laos are even more complicated.
In the mid-2010s, both countries experienced a rubber boom due to high prices and favorable land concession policies, which attracted significant investment from Chinese and Vietnamese firms.
Corporate investors play a significant role in these countries’ supply chains, as smallholders only account for 44% of rubber production in Cambodia, 30% in Laos, and 50% in Viet Nam – far less than in Thailand.
Data from LICADHO, a Cambodian human rights NGO, reveal that a third of the total one million hectares of rubber plantations in Cambodia are owned by local companies – many tied to powerful families.
Vietnamese firms control another third, some of which have been accused of forest clearing and abuses against Indigenous communities.
“Land concessions granted for rubber have devastated Cambodia’s forests,” said Naly Pilorge, Outreach Director at LICADHO. “Prey Lang is a prime example. By the time the area was declared protected in 2016, huge swaths already converted to rubber were excluded from the protected zone.”
In Laos, Chinese rubber plantations have replaced opium fields, but their contract-farming and land-concession models have been criticized for delivering inequitable benefits to local communities.
In southern Laos, Vietnamese firms such as Viet Nam Rubber Group and Hoàng Anh Gia Lai obtained long-term land leases that allegedly included forest areas, exporting most of their output back to Viet Nam and re-exporting to China.
With such a system of politically influenced land acquisition, meeting traceability requirements remains extremely challenging.
Laos rubber
A large pile of natural rubber cup lumps is stacked in the yard of a Chinese-owned rubber processing factory in Luang Namtha Province, Laos. PHOTO: Thanh Hue
Officials in Viet Nam admitted that rubber imported from Cambodia and Laos cannot be fully traced.
Supply-chain data from Sayari shows that Chinese and Indian tire makers source rubber from both Laos and Cambodia. Rubber from both countries also makes its way to the U.S. via Vietnamese suppliers.
Major tire makers such as Giti Tire, Michelin North America, ATC Tires, JK Tyre are purchasing from R1 International and similar companies, which source their rubber acoss the Mekong region.
Chinese tire giants Guizhou and Sailun also buy rubber from the Mekong region, selling to more than 180 countries, including North America and Europe.
Traceability system taking shape
Regulatory pressure on traceability is growing worldwide. The EU Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR) requires companies exporting to the bloc to ensure their products, including rubber, are not linked to deforestation or human rights violations.
However, its implementation has been delayed until late 2026, prompting calls for accelerated action to ensure timely enforcement.
The delay is significant for the Mekong region, whose five countries collectively exported 13% of the natural rubber to EU markets, second only to China’s 36%, according to data compiled from the UN Comtrade.
Another mechanism is the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR), founded in 2019, which includes major tire producers such as Linglong and Shandong Haohua Tire.
By 2027, GPSNR plans to implement mandatory standards, which will require supply chain mapping, annual reporting, and third-party verification.
rubber farmer
A farmer taps rubber trees in northern Laos in the early morning. PHOTO: Thanh Hue
China, meanwhile, has no mandatory regulations yet but is moving toward sustainable sourcing mechanisms.
In 2017, the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters (CCCMC) issued voluntary natural-rubber sustainability guidelines and has encouraged implementation among overseas Chinese companies, although progress has been limited.
Local news reports show it has also been collaborating with Mekong governments to develop responsible supply chains.
In Cambodia and Laos, groups like Oxfam have been helping communities build traceability systems and pushing overseas companies to engage responsibly with local people. At the same time, WWF has worked with smallholders in Myanmar to establish standards.
Thailand has expanded farmer and land-plot registration as well as rubber cooperatives to improve transparency. The Thai government has been encouraging farmers to integrate agroforestry and reforestation into their farming practices.
Meanwhile, prominent Thai rubber processors, such as Sri Trang, Vong Bundit and Southland Rubber Group have also launched initiatives and partnerships with smallholders to ensure traceability.
As the EV industry booms while ethical rubber practices emerge, this series examines how neglecting responsibility can lead to irreversible ecological, social, and economic losses – and how better practices can pave the way for a just energy transition.
Part 2: Cash from rubber comes at the cost of Laos’ forests
Story by Vo Kieu Bao Uyen and Konlaphat Siri
Rubber plantations are eating up the remaining forests of Laos and across the Mekong region, while farmers are gradually losing their economic reliance on the rubber industry
When Chinese rubber companies arrived in Leung district of Luang Namtha province in northern Laos, about two decades ago, the quiet rice-farming village of indigenous Akha people was quickly transformed in ways few had imagined.
The old thatched huts gave way to wooden houses. Families who once grew opium for cash and bartered for rice and salt suddenly could afford TVs, rice cookers, and motorbikes.
“Before rubber, there wasn’t a single motorbike here. Now almost every household has one,” said Mou, a village leader and one of the first to grow rubber.
Yet along with the new homes and incomes came steep costs – forest loss and dwindling biodiversity.
Local communities, which once relied on subsistence farming and forest products, now find their land rights uncertain and their livelihoods tied to volatile prices of rubber.
“It used to be a forest. Now it’s all rubber,” said Mou, pointing to a ridge of rubber trees, while sitting inside his wooden stilt house built from rubber earnings.
As rubber prices rose in recent years, many villagers have either expanded their plots or pondered doing it. Even those who cut down their trees during the price crash in the mid-2010s were eager to replant.
The expansion crept into protected forests, where villagers say boundaries were often unclear. “A few trees were cut each day, and before long, the old forest was gone,” Mou said.
A regional rubber surge
Unlike Cambodia and Viet Nam, where rubber plantations dated back to the colonial era, Laos was a latecomer to the industry. Its boom started in the early 2000s, when China’s rising economy was hungry for rubber and Viet Nam was pushing into the global rubber supply chain.
As these countries’ domestic supplies were unable to meet the surging demand, Laos, with ample land and close political ties, became a prime destination.
Throughout the 2000s, Laos issued investment promotion policies and land laws that classified rubber as a “priority crop,” offering long-term concessions, tax holidays and export duty exemptions.
These incentives spurred a wave of Chinese and Vietnamese investment across the country.
Two decades later, Laos has roughly 300,000 hectares of rubber plantations, according to a 2022 Kyoto University study. Nearly half are large-scale concessions run by foreign firms, about 30% are managed by smallholders and the rest fall under contract farming.
Laos’ story is not unique. Across the Mekong region, rubber plantations have been expanding rapidly under state-backed incentives.
https://flo.uri.sh/visualisation/26277660/embed
Rubber is one of the world’s most versatile commodities, used in a wide range of applications from medical gloves and shoes to industrial hoses and seals. About 70% of it, however, goes into tire manufacturing.
That makes the crop’s future increasingly intertwined with the global shift toward electric vehicles, which require more frequent replacements than conventional cars and therefore, more tires.
This shift could bring new economic opportunities for the Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam – which together produce half of the world’s natural rubber.
The region’s forests, which have been cleared for rubber production in the past two decades, could face further degradation if traceability systems fail to improve.
The interactive map below shows how rubber plantations expanded across five Mekong countries from 2014 to 2023. Scroll through the content to explore plantation locations and the scale of their expansion.
Historically, the rapid expansion of rubber plantations has been closely linked to deforestation across the region, with an estimated 1.35 million hectares of forest lost to rubber between 2001 and 2016, according to a Nature study. However, researchers note that the exact figures remain contested and have called for more comprehensive studies to assess the true extent of rubber-driven forest loss.
Despite rubber prices plunging to their lowest point in 2016 since the boom two decades earlier, rubber plantations have continued to expand across the Mekong region, although at a slower pace since its peak years – data from Land Cover Portal, developed by SERVIR-SEA, show.
In Thailand, the world’s largest producer of natural rubber, oil palm has been replacing rubber in its traditional base in the south. Under government subsidies, rubber plantations have been pushing rapidly into ecologically sensitive areas of the country’s north and northeast.
Despite ongoing political instability and fragmented administration, rubber plantations in Myanmar tripled in size between 2014 and 2023. Cultivation has expanded, especially in northern Shan State, which borders China.
In Viet Nam, the rubber industry has deep roots dating back to the colonial era, with plantations doubling over the past Decade, particularly in the southern provinces where the climate is favorable. Today, the country is increasingly importing from neighboring Laos and Cambodia to grow its processing industry.
Plantations in Cambodia have quadrupled, spreading across several provinces near the Vietnamese border, where companies such as Vietnam Rubber Group and Hoang Anh Gia Lai hold large concession areas.
In Laos, rubber cultivation has tripled, with Chinese investors dominating the north and Vietnamese companies leading in the south. The new Laos-China Railway and China’s 2024 tariff removal on Lao imports have strengthened rubber flows northward.
Such growth in rubber plantation areas reflects a shift from other crops to rubber, which offers farmers more stable, long-term income and has driven further land clearing. But this expansion comes at the cost of forest loss, including community forests that support livelihoods and pristine forests that sustain wildlife and ecosystems.
China’s tight grip on northern Laos
While rubber has lifted many out of poverty in northern Laos, contract farming schemes, though generating income for many farmers, have left many locals vulnerable and dependent on the industry.
Financed by China’s Opium Substitution Fund to replace poppy cultivation in the region, Yunnan-based rubber companies arrived after Beijing rolled out its “Go Out” strategy in the early 2000s, urging Chinese firms to invest overseas with subsidies, tax breaks and fast-track approvals.
On Laos’ side, local officials provided support and affordable credit for households to buy seedlings and equipment, hailing rubber as a path out of poverty and away from shifting cultivation.
Within only a few years, Luang Namtha became the epicenter of Laos’ rubber boom. Nearby provinces quickly followed suit.
Yunnan State Farms Group, one of the most prominent Chinese province-level state-owned enterprises, arrived in northern Laos in 2002 and has remained active since then. It supplies rubber to domestic and international tire manufacturers such as Giti, Hankook, Maxxis and Kunlun, according to a Chinese state media report.
Two contract farming models have taken root in northern Laos under arrangements with local authorities, according to Michael B. Dwyer, assistant professor of geography at Indiana University and the author of Upland Geopolitics.
Under the “2+3” scheme, smallholder farmers provided land and labor, while companies supplied seedlings, support and market access. Under this scheme, about 70% of profits go to farmers, who retain some negotiation power because Chinese companies depend on their decisions to plant rubber before any contract is signed.
With the “1+4” model, farmers contribute only land, while companies control both inputs and labor. Farmers capture around 30% of profits.
Local authorities promoted schemes that favored smallholders, but many investors have been pushing for greater control. Military units also entered the industry, signing contracts with Chinese firms to use army-controlled border land.
Meanwhile, villagers often signed opaque contracts without fully understanding the terms. This usually leaves them in a vulnerable position, where their land-use rights are at risk as long-term benefits are gradually shifted into companies’ hands.
Under contract farming, some Lao farmers have lost control of their land. Rubber trees require between seven and eight years to become productive, a lengthy period during which farmers can fall into debt waiting for harvest. This is when companies could intervene and acquire the farmers’ land tenure rights.
Many farmers are also ineligible to sign a direct contract with the company. In Luang Namtha, plots of less than two hectares are typically too small for formal agreements. Households therefore organize themselves into groups of 10 to 12, pooling their cup-lump rubber at a collection point where company trucks arrive several times a week.
Once a contract is signed, villagers told Mekong Eye, they are bound to the company’s price, even if outside traders offer more.
Yunnan State Farms Group did not respond to Mekong Eye’s inquiries about its policy on ethical and responsible rubber production.
Muddy rubber trail
By late afternoon, a short stretch of roadside in Luang Namtha’s Leung district transforms into a modest market. Farmers arrive one by one on motorbikes, with sacks of cup-lump rubber strapped to their backs, and wait for buyers to appear.
Middlemen inspect and weigh each sack with practiced care, offering cash on the spot.
In Luang Namtha, small rubber plots of less than two hectares are often carved from former forest land. At this market, however, no one asks where the rubber came from or who grew it.
“What they care about is quality and weight,” said a young farmer who spoke anonymously, his eyes fixed on a sack as it was hoisted onto the scale. “They’re afraid we’ll slip stones inside to make it heavier.”
Once the sacks are loaded onto small trucks, the group disperses, and the buyers move on to other spots where another cluster of farmers is already waiting.
Mekong Eye could not independently verify the specific path of rubber coming out of this market. Still, according to some local farmers and middlemen, the rubber often ends up at Chinese-owned purchasing agencies or processing factories.
After processing, the rubber is transported to Boten station near the China border, where it boards the China-Laos Railway to Yunnan. From there, it travels to downstream factories before reaching tire manufacturers across China.
By the time it reaches tire factories, the trail of rubber has become muddy.
“Local authorities told villagers not to clear the forest for rubber. But when buyers keep purchasing without asking or monitoring where the latex comes from, many people feel there’s no reason to stop,” admitted a district officer in Luang Namtha, who requested anonymity.
Laos struggles with traceability like the rest of the Mekong region, according to U.S. NGO Forest Trends.
In 2023, data compiled from the UN Comtrade showed that 46% of Laos’ rubber exports went to Viet Nam and 40% to China.
Lao rubber, however, isn’t always recognized as such. As traceability is murky, it is sometimes even relabeled as Vietnamese.
Yet rubber from Laos powers car tires worldwide. Supply-chain tracking platform Sayari reveals that, via Singapore subsidiary R1 International, China Hainan Rubber Industry Group — which supplies tire factories across China and beyond — is a major buyer of rubber sourced from Vietnamese companies that procure their supplies from Laos.
Guizhou Tyre Viet Nam, a new producer of electric truck tires, buys from Liên Anh, a major partner of many Vietnamese companies, including the state-owned Viet Nam Rubber Group, which sources from Laos and Cambodia. Guizhou Tyre’s products primarily go to China, Russia, the U.S. and Brazil.
Guizhou Tyre China also sources from another Vietnamese partner, Đức Hiền Quảng Trị, which buys from a network of middlemen and smallholder farmers scattered across central Laos and Cambodia.
Mekong Eye contacted the companies named above via the email addresses listed on their websites, but did not receive a response by press time.
the major buyers of Lao rubber. GRAPHIC: Vo Kieu Bao Uyen
According to the Global Canopy Forest 500 Report 2025, which assesses the 500 most influential companies linked to forest-risk commodities, including rubber, major producers from China and Viet Nam are far from meeting “deforestation-free” standards.
Among those present in Laos, Yunnan Natural Rubber Industry Group and Hoang Anh Gia Lai both scored 0%, while China Hainan Rubber Industry Group 12% and Viet Nam Rubber Group 15%.
These low scores reflect weak performance across multiple indicators, including commitments to deforestation-free sourcing, labor and land rights transparency, and safeguards to prevent forest loss in their supply chains.
Lost land, desperation in southern Laos
In the south, indigenous people are losing their farmland and forest to land concessions. Vietnamese firms are the dominant players in the industry.
In Thateng district in Sekong province, a village lost 5,000 hectares of farmland and forest to a concession granted in 2006 to Lao Viet Friendship (LVF), a joint venture between Lao and Vietnamese state-owned companies.
This was the home of the Indigenous Katu people, who had been forced to relocate once under a government resettlement policy to end slash-and-burn farming.
The company moved in and banned villagers from grazing livestock on land they used to own, recalled Seangdao, a villager who wished to speak under a pseudonym. Those who resisted were arrested and forced to pledge an end to protesting.
Without their farmland, villagers had little choice but to become plantation laborers, earning as little as 60,000 to 100,000 kip (US$0.3 to $4) a day – barely enough for rice.
“Rubber is a good thing if we still have land to grow rice,” Seangdao, whose children had to drop out of school, said.
Relocation has been challenging. One proposed resettlement site was found to be located within a protected area, where local authorities block farming activities. In the past few years, villagers have consistently sent petitions to the central government asking to be granted proper land, only to be met with in vain.
Some villagers struggling to feed their families admitted to becoming so despondent that they resorted to stealing rubber. LVF, in response, mobilized local police and military units to prevent latex thefts.
Despite the controversy, the Lao government has continued to approve new rubber concession projects, most recently for Viet Nam Rubber Group (VRG)’s plan to expand by 30,000 hectares. Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone has proposed that the project prioritize cooperative models to maximize benefits for smallholder farmers.
VRG has also expanded into northern Oudomxay province, an area traditionally influenced by Chinese investors.
VRG and LVF did not respond to Mekong Eye’s inquiries about their policy to ensure traceability and community engagement.
Centering smallholder farmers
According to Ian G. Baird, a political ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who has studied the rubber industry in southern Laos, involving farmers is crucial to improving traceability and fair profit distribution.
“One solution is to group smallholders into cooperatives,” he said. With state and industry support, cooperatives could help farmers become more competitive, secure certification, pool resources and strengthen accountability.
Given the impacts of large-scale plantation concessions on local communities and the environment, the Lao government has become increasingly skeptical about rubber and eucalyptus investments, Baird’s 2019 study found. In 2015, it issued a moratorium to halt such plantations.
“The province has learned many lessons,” the study cited a local government official in Champasak, where VRG operates.
Amidst criticism, some Chinese and Vietnamese firms have started adopting sustainability frameworks, although implementation is limited.
In 2017, China released Guidelines for Sustainable Development of Natural Rubber, and in 2019, introduced it to Chinese companies in Laos, according to a study published by Mekong Region Land Governance.
In 2019, Viet Nam introduced voluntary guidelines to mitigate socio-environmental risks abroad. VRG later published a Handbook for Community Engagement to guide subsidiaries in Laos and Cambodia.
Yet forests and land lost to the rubber industry in the past are unlikely to be returned to local communities, despite civil society groups’ calls for a remedy.
According to Juliet Lu, a political ecologist at the University of British Columbia who studies the rubber industry in Laos and Cambodia, efforts to address the historical impacts of rubber had already “hit a wall” many years ago.
“The governments were unwilling to protect local community land rights and Vietnamese companies could point to the government as supporting the company’s claims to land,” she said.
“A lack of government-side reversal of these land-granting contracts reduced the maneuvering room for communities and organizations advocating on their behalf.”
Part 3: In Cambodia, our land became their rubber plantation
Story by Bao Uyen Vo Kieu and Meng Kroypunlok / Illustration by Supasin Kreecharoen
Across the country, rubber plantations built on land concessions are stripping Indigenous communities of their forests
Minh Ny and his family reside in a wooden house in Srae Chang village, Kampong Thom province, central Cambodia. They grow three hectares of rice, cassava and cashews.
Their farmland was once within walking distance of Prey Lang, Cambodia’s great rainforest, which the Kuy Indigenous people have called home for generations.
In their language, Prey Lang means “our forest.” In this home and sanctuary, vines sprout, wild fruit blooms, animals roam and ancestor spirits return to the trees. People and the forest lived as kin – one feeds, the other protects.
That bond began to break two decades ago. The government granted vast land concessions that gave away protected and community forests to private companies. And then along came rubber plantations.
The forest, once a food source and spiritual entity, was transformed into commodities – tires, gloves and shoes for faraway markets.
Vietnamese firms are major investors in Cambodia’s rubber industry. Since 2010, they have obtained approximately 200,000 hectares of land, an area equivalent to three times the size of Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh. Most of this land was previously classified as forest.
For Minh Ny and hundreds of Kuy Indigenous families, the concessions felt like a death sentence. Suddenly, they were cut off from their main source of food, medicine and livelihoods. When they rose in protest, the response was swift and harsh.
What was once abundant is now scarce. Without the forest, Minh Ny’s most valuable possessions today are a motorbike and a walking tractor.
In Ratanakiri province in northeastern Cambodia, the Kreung and Brao Indigenous peoples faced the same fate.
Chanthea, a 35-year-old Brao woman, watched helplessly as a Vietnamese rubber company felled the forest around her village. Her family was forced to abandon their forest and move to a slope where crops struggled to grow.
“We believe that some spirits live in the forest, and we believe our crops will not grow well if trees are cut,” she said. “There is either too much rain or no rain at all. The ancestral spirits are not happy.”
Like many others, Chanthea’s husband, her brother and her sister-in-law had no choice but to work as rubber tappers for the same company that destroyed their forest.
Each earns about US$120-150 a month, a meager trade-off for the abundance once provided by the forest.
In another corner of Cambodia’s northern Preah Vihear province, Kuy farmer Khut Soeum lost his rice fields to yet another Vietnamese concession inside the Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary. There was no compensation, no official notice.
Yet Soeum refused to surrender. With what remains of the forest, he and other villagers formed a voluntary patrol, venturing into the woods each month to guard against further destruction.
“If we don’t protect the forest, we will lose it forever. I grieve that the land of our ancestors has been taken over,” Soeum said quietly.
Rubber plantations across Cambodia, in many cases, were on land that was once someone else’s home.
Stories of Minh Ny, Chantea, and Soeum from three Cambodian provinces are not theirs alone.
The patch of forest near their home survived the birth of rubber production under French colonization, then decades of wars and conflicts throughout the 20th century.
However, it did not survive the rubber price surge in the 2010s, which triggered a rubber boom in Cambodia and led the government to incorporate the industry into existing land policies, attracting tycoons, politicians, and foreign investors.
Between 2001 and 2012, under the 2001 Land Law, Cambodia permitted economic land concessions (ELCs) of up to 100,000 hectares and lasting up to 99 years, although the actual duration was eventually reduced to 50 years.
These ELCs were intended to spur investment and rural development. Instead, they fueled deforestation and the displacement of Indigenous and Khmer communities.
At the start of the millennium, Cambodia had more than 34,000 hectares of active rubber production. More than two decades later, this figure increased tenfold in 2023, according to FAO data.
Roughly within the same period, Cambodia lost 29.5% of its forest cover between 2001 and 2021. Up to 40% of this deforestation was linked to ELCs, a 2022 study found.
In 2012, facing growing protests from villagers and concerns about disappearing wilderness, then-Prime Minister Hun Sen paused these ELCs. A decade later, in 2022, Cambodia resumed these concessions, raising fears of igniting new land conflicts.
Where Cambodian rubber goes
Following Cambodia’s rubber as it flows through Viet Nam to tire and EV makers in China and the U.S.
Cambodia grows rubber for its domestic market, but most of its output ends up in the hands of Vietnamese rubber companies, who sell it to producers — including Chinese and global tire makers, whose products enable the EV transition worldwide.
A key link in this supply chain is Viet Nam. While the country’s own EV transition has driven some demand, its geopolitical advantages have enabled more rubber processing and tire production.
During the first Trump administration’s trade war with China, it hosted an influx of Chinese firms and became a key trade partner with U.S. and European tire companies.
Demand is likely to increase as Viet Nam’s own EV transition takes shape. Major cities have planned to phase out gasoline-powered motorbikes as early as 2026, and offered tax breaks and low-interest loans to EV producers and buyers. Since 2022, EV sales have jumped almost tenfold.
The tire industry consumes more than 70% of global natural rubber. Analysts at the Viet Nam Rubber Association say the global EV boom is now one of the key drivers of rubber consumption. They expect continued growth.
Meanwhile, Viet Nam produces only about 40% of its processing needs, despite owning many hectares of rubber plantations.
To fill this big gap, both Vietnamese state-owned and private companies have looked to Cambodia and Laos.
In 2023, Viet Nam imported 1.4 million tons of raw rubber, most of which was re-exported to China. Up to 80% of this volume comes from Cambodia and 11% from Laos, according to a Forest Trends report.
“Vietnamese firms are backed by deep ties with ruling elites and entrenched local business networks,” said Nguyễn Khắc Giang, a research fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
“That political capital secures them a privileged position, even at moments when anti-Vietnamese sentiment runs high in Cambodia,” Giang added.
Viet Nam Rubber Group (VRG) is Cambodia’s largest rubber investor. Through complex paths, VRG rubber is supplying certain EV tire markets around the world.
The group supplies major Chinese rubber firms Newfortune and Mainland, as well as tire giants Goodyear, Michelin, Bridgestone, Kumho and Sumitomo.
One of its biggest customers is Sailun, China’s second-largest domestic tire brand. Sailun has developed EV tires that it claims fit nearly 90% of models on the market and sells them to more than 180 countries.
Many EV makers buy Sailun tires, including Toyota, Chinese brands BYD, Geely, Great Wall and Vietnamese brand VinFast.
Sailun, calling VRG its “closest partner,” has pledged to ramp up purchases from VRG’s operations in Cambodia and Laos.
According to supply-chain data from a tech firm, Sayari, VRG in Cambodia also supplies Chinese tire maker Jinyu, which runs a factory in Viet Nam near the Cambodian border, producing EV bus tires.
Another key customer of VRG is Hiệp Thành, which supplies Triangle Tyre, China’s eighth-largest tire maker, producing EV tires for export to South and North America.
Sintex, a major partner of VRG, supplies rubber to Taiwan’s Cheng Shin, which produces electric motorcycles and car tires under the Maxxis brand, and later exports them to China and global markets.
R1 International, a subsidiary of Hainan Rubber and supplier to major EV tire manufacturers, including GiGi Tire, Michelin North America, JK Tyre, also sources rubber across Southeast Asia, including via VRG.
On the other hand, Cambodian rubber is reaching EV markets directly without Vietnamese intermediaries like VRG. Chinese companies such as BYD are setting up shop in Cambodia’s special economic zones to avoid the U.S. tariffs.
At present, there are six Chinese tire plants either in operation or under construction in Cambodia.
These investments have surged along with a spike in Cambodia’s EV market. In 2024, new registrations rose 620% from 2023.
Mekong Eye contacted VRG, Sailun, and Hainan Rubber Industry Group via the official emails listed on their websites to request clarification on their rubber traceability systems, but did not receive a response.
Land concessions, a battleground
Behind Cambodia’s rubber boom lies a growing land struggle, as concessions encroach on forests and Indigenous territories
While EVs with tires made from Cambodian rubber roll on Hanoi, Shanghai and San Francisco streets, land concessions remain a battleground for Cambodia’s Indigenous people.
Vietnamese investors alone own roughly one-third of Cambodia’s total ELCs, most of them for rubber production, data from nonprofit LICADHO shows.
VRG is responsible for one-third of Viet Nam’s rubber production. It operates an area the size of Hong Kong, about 100,000 hectares.
In 2013, Global Witness accused VRG of clearing at least 50,000 hectares in Cambodia, including protected areas and Indigenous territories. Forest Steward Councils (FSC), a global non-profit organization that promotes responsible forest management, revoked VRG Cambodia’s certification in 2015.
VRG dismissed the allegations and maintained its projects were sustainable and lawful due to the land acquisition approval by the governments of Cambodia and Laos.
VRG recently announced plans to expand by 40,000 hectares in Cambodia, raising concerns of renewed forest loss and land conflict.
Other Vietnamese companies have also expanded aggressively. Hoàng Anh Gia Lai (HAGL) secured tens of thousands of hectares in Ratanakiri for 50-70 years, much of it overlapping Indigenous Jarai, Kachok and Tompoun territories.
Allegations of land grabbing, the destruction of sacred sites, and forced displacement led 17 Indigenous villages to file a complaint with the World Bank’s Compliance Advisor Ombudsman in 2014.
Despite promises to return land, clearing allegedly continued during Covid-19 lockdowns. HAGL denied wrongdoing in an interview with Vietnamese state media, saying the land was a degraded forest and the project created jobs.
“These ELCs severely impact the livelihood and culture of both Khmer and Indigenous households,” said Naly Pilorge, LICADHO outreach director. “A systematic failure to conduct meaningful social and environmental impact assessments resulted in an opaque process. Communities often learned of concessions only after approval.”
“Rubber cultivation has impoverished Indigenous communities, driving many to abandon their villages,” Roy, a Cambodian NGO leader, told Mekong Eye. “It has brought roads and jobs, but benefits are far too small compared with what we’ve lost.”
VRG, HAGL, and Thaco Group — to which HAGL transferred its rubber holdings in Cambodia and Laos — did not respond to Mekong Eye’s interview requests.
Untraceable rubber from smallholders
A complex web of smallholders, traders, and cross-border brokers makes Cambodia’s rubber difficult to trace, with major suppliers acknowledging gaps
Rubber flows from Cambodia to Viet Nam not only via concession-holding firms, but also through layered traders and smallholders, who manage less than four hectares on average yet hold more than 40% of Cambodia’s rubber area.
Rubber from smallholders is often exported raw via middlemen, according to a Forest Trends report. Farmers in Kampong Thom and Ratanakiri told Mekong Eye they sell coagulum directly to Vietnamese traders or local collectors, with little to no record-keeping.
Before crossing the border, rubber from multiple sources is lumped together, making traceability impossible in many cases.
VRG, which sources more than 15% of its rubber from smallholders across Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam, acknowledged gaps.
A Viet Nam agriculture ministry official admitted that rubber imported from Cambodia and Laos cannot be fully traced and is blended with the domestic supply before processing and exporting to China and beyond.
Efforts such as the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) and certification schemes like FSC have sought to curb deforestation and improve traceability. Yet compliance, especially finding proof of deforestation-free sourcing, remains a challenge.
As of December 2024, only three of VRG’s 63 subsidiaries across Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia had met EUDR standards.
In September 2025, the group reported that 81% of its Cambodian plantation area had “completed or was close to completing” EUDR compliance.
However, its subsidiary Chư Sê Kampong Thom, a key supplier of Sailun, remains suspended by the FSC due to past deforestation accusations and has yet to be reinstated after a decade-long suspension.
“FSC is not engaged in a dialogue with VRG for the implementation of the FSC Remedy Framework. But we’re open to discussions with any organization interested in pursuing a remedy process, including VRG,” FSC International told Mekong Eye via an email, referring to its framework that addresses companies’ past social and environmental harms to the forests.
VinFast, a customer of Sailun, told Mekong Eye it has some traceability mechanisms in place.
“All OEM tire suppliers must sign a commitment to comply with VinFast’s Supplier Code of Conduct and Sustainable Supply Policy, in which VinFast requires partners to not only comply with the law, but also share a commitment to people, the environment and business ethics,” said ESG director David Edgardo Falcon Adasme.
“When risks are detected, VinFast applies a verification process and requires remediation, and may suspend cooperation if the supplier commits serious violations.”
Generational scar
Rubber evictions have reshaped the lives of current and next generations of Indigenous people, forcing painful trade-offs — lost education, risky labor, and futures shaped more by survival than choice
In Ratanakiri, families who lost farmland to rubber concessions have cleared new plots in the remaining forest.
Many Indigenous people, still being displaced from their ancestral land, now tap rubber for a Vietnamese company under low wages and high malaria risk, without protection or compensation.
“Some girls in my village have had to leave school and marry early after their families lost their livelihoods,” said Sa, a Jarai community member and NGO worker.
With few alternatives, young workers have been drawn to Chinese tire manufacturers, enduring long night shifts and frequent overtime in the heat radiating from production lines. Yet for many, the factory still offers a “better environment.”
Nit, 20, who doesn’t want to be a rubber tapper her entire life like her parents, hopes to save enough factory money to one day become a police officer.
“Rubber can make money,” Nit said from her rented room of less than 12 square meters. “But it wasn’t enough for me to continue my studies. I had to stop after high school and go to the factory.”
Her hands bear burn scars and thin black streaks from handling heated rubber slabs, which soon would be molded into tires.
Part 4: Myanmar’s upland plantations worsen border floods
Story by Kannikar Petchkaew and Vo Kieu Bao Uyen
Monoculture rubber plantations backed by ethnic armed groups and China, along with other cash crops and mining, are stripping Myanmar’s eastern hillsides bare and saturating them with chemicals
This series was produced in partnership with Earth Journalism Network and the Pulitzer Center
On a stormy night in July, muddy torrents swept through Mae Sai, a small town in northern Thailand bordering Myanmar. The Sai River, which flows from the mountainous Shan State of eastern Myanmar, turned deep brown as it flooded homes and streets.
The water receded over the following two days, but a thick layer of mud coated walls, floors and roads – leaving villagers with a long, backbreaking cleanup.
In recent years, transboundary floods like this have become increasingly severe. In September 2024, floods and landslides killed two, injured two and left four missing in Mae Sai.
Changes in both the upstream and downstream parts of the river were to blame. Down the river, rapid urban expansion has narrowed the floodways. In the upstream section, the widespread clearance of forests for agriculture and mining have stripped the hills bare and left them more vulnerable to erosion.
One crop that is replacing forests in the area at a significant rate is rubber, most of which is exported to China and used for the tire industry.
The Wa-China rubber corridor
On the Myanmar side along the Sai River and Ruak River, into which the Sai flows, rubber plantations now blanket once-forested slopes.
Straight rows of rubber trees have spread across eastern Shan State, where both rivers start. Here, Myanmar’s most powerful ethnic armed group, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), is in charge.
The group has been opening up the hills it controls to satisfy China’s relentless demand for natural rubber for the past decade.
During this period, plantations have expanded significantly near the border with China, satellite imagery revealed.
More than 50,000 hectares of rubber – an area larger than Singapore – now covers UWSA-controlled territory in most of eastern Shan State, where environmental regulations are rarely enforced.
One plantation along Ruak River, which also travels across the Thai-Myanmar border, spans more than 3,600 hectares.
Another plantation along the Kok River, which flows from this territory through Thailand before joining the Mekong River, stretches for 11 kilometers along the riverbank, covering 8,300 hectares.
“The plantations belong to the Chinese. That’s all we were told,” said Nang Saeng Ngern, a daily-wage rubber tapper and local villager in Shan State. “The Wa army permitted them. We just keep our mouths shut,” she added.
https://flo.uri.sh/story/3488049/embed
Between 2013 and 2023, natural rubber production in Myanmar nearly doubled, according to FAO data.
China’s tire industry – producing more than one billion tires in 2024 – relies heavily on imports from rubber-producing countries in Southeast Asia, including Myanmar.
In 2023, the country exported nearly 85,000 tons of natural rubber, with 62% sent to China, UN Comtrade data shows.
With improved infrastructure under the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor and tariff-free access through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership starting from May 2025, Myanmar’s rubber has become increasingly attractive to Chinese buyers.
Northern Myanmar’s rubber boom largely began with China’s Opium Replacement Program in 2004, which tried to curb poppy farming in Myanmar and Laos by supporting Chinese firms to grow other cash crops, especially rubber.
Backed by the UWSA, many Chinese investors secured long-term land deals – some lasting up to 30 years. Smallholders, on the other hand, are dependent on dealers who have a connection with Chinese traders.
Under the program, state-owned giants such as Yunnan State Farms Group (YSFG) and Guangdong Guangken Rubber received grants, concessional loans, tax breaks and duty-free import quotas.
As an early entrant, YSFG’s two subsidiaries in Myanmar had secured nearly 8,000 hectares through long-term leases by the late 2000s. They planted hundreds of thousands of rubber seedlings near Pangkham, the UWSA capital bordering China.
Surging rubber prices in the 2010s fueled further growth. In 2012, the group opened a processing plant that supplied tire-grade rubber to factories in Yunnan.
According to a Chinese state media, Yunnan Natural Rubber Industry Group, a subsidiary of YSFG, supplies rubber to Chinese and international tire manufacturers, including Giti, Hankook, Maxxis and Kunlun.
Mekong Eye contacted YSFG for comment on its activities in Myanmar and northern Laos, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Not forest cover
Across the Mekong region, rubber plantations are often counted as forest cover. Yet, researchers have long argued that monoculture rubber plantations cannot replicate the ecological functions of natural forests, such as retaining water and anchoring soil.
A 2025 study found that rubber expansion in the middle Lancang-Mekong River Basin has worsened erosion, especially in plantations aged between 12 and 18 years.
Researchers warned that new plantations were increasingly encroaching on higher, steeper, wetter and more depleted terrains – where erosion is most likely to occur.
“In many parts of the Mekong River Basin, prolonged use of pesticides and herbicides has accelerated the depletion of soil organic carbon,” explained an Australian-Vietnamese environmental expert studying ecological change in Mekong region, who requested anonymity so he could speak more freely.
Soil organic carbon plays a vital role in sustaining soil health by retaining moisture, supporting microbial activity, and stabilising soil structure. Its depletion leads to soil desiccation, reduced cohesion, heightened erosion, and increased surface runoff, limiting groundwater recharge and undermining the land’s ability to retain water.
“If current monoculture practices persist, the rubber industry in the region faces substantial risk under intensifying climate change,” the expert warned.
More frequent and extreme rainfall events driven by climate variability—such as those associated with La Niña—particularly in Myanmar and Laos, where rubber plantations are widely established on steep slopes, are increasing the likelihood of flash floods, landslides, and severe soil loss.
“These cascading impacts threaten rural livelihoods, reduce plantation productivity, and heighten disaster risks for surrounding communities.”
In 2021, the Shan Human Rights Foundation reported that rubber expansion by UWSA-linked companies, in partnership with Chinese investors, destroyed community forests and traditional upland farms. Villagers were forced to clear and burn land for rubber seedlings, and some were even evicted.
In Tachileik, a border town, most rubber plantations are owned by outside investors who bring in migrant laborers from other parts of Myanmar, according to the report.
Local communities did not reap significant benefits from the crop. Rubber jobs often go to outsiders who speak Chinese, leaving many Shan villagers excluded from these opportunities. Those who did secure a job earned barely enough to survive.
“They told us rubber would bring more income than rice farming,” said 35-year-old Said Sai Muang, a rubber tapper living south of Muang Hsat in Shan State who wished to speak anonymously. Said earns only 20 yuan (US$3) a day on the land he once owned.
“I’m lucky because I can speak a little Chinese,” he said.
Cross-border water contamination
Rubber plantations don’t just rip open the soil, their heavy chemicals can also spread across borders via waterways.
In eastern Shan State, Chinese dense planting techniques – up to 1,200 kilograms per hectare per year – promise higher yields than Myanmar’s traditional farming methods, but with hidden environmental costs.
“Rubber needs constant fertilizer, especially as a monoculture,” said Suphachai Khangkhun, director of the Rubber Authority of Thailand’s Chiang Rai Office. “The chemicals increase production, but organic substances that sustain the soil don’t yield.”
The combination of chemical-heavy cultivation and acid-based rubber processing has left the rivers murky and the soil depleted.
Wan Wiriya, a chemist at the Environmental Science Research Center of Chiangmai University, tracks the flow of rivers from Shan State into Thailand and the Mekong. He has noticed alarming spikes in heavy metals, including arsenic, cadmium, manganese and nickel.
In July 2025, his research team conducted a study of rivers along the Thai-Myanmar border and found alarming results. Water at eight of nine monitoring stations registered contamination at “high risk” levels, indicating it poses serious health threats and requires urgent toxic control and monitoring.
Two stations, both near the border where the largest rubber compound in Shan State is situated, were classified as “very high risk” and “extremely high risk,” meaning the water can cause immediate or long-term harm to human health without prompt action.
Multiple factors may be linked to this contamination, including mining and land-use changes associated with large-scale agriculture.
“When forests are replaced with large plantations, the land itself releases metals into rivers,” Wan explained. “Monocultures demand intensive chemicals, and rubber processing uses strong acids. These contaminants linger in the environment for decades, even centuries.”
For communities downstream, this could mean the water flowing through their homes and fields is not safe, although there is not yet research that clarifies the extent of cross-border water contamination.
“Rivers are a single ecosystem. They are always connected – you cannot confine the damage to one river,” said Thanapol Piman of the Stockholm Environment Institute. Thanapol has studied flooding patterns in Thailand’s Mae Sai since 2019 and believes that floods are becoming more frequent and severe.
“When one river suffers, others in the same system suffer too. To tackle environmental impacts, you need to work across all of them,” he added.
“Every country involved needs to work together on cross-border water management. No matter where you are, you will face the same consequences sooner or later.”
Part 5: Mekong’s push for responsible rubber and tire production
Story by Paritta Wangkiat, Kannikar Petchkeaw and Vo Kieu Bao Uyen
Across the region, traceability systems are forming, yet efforts to address historical deforestation and land conflicts remain stalled
This series was produced in partnership with Earth Journalism Network and the Pulitzer Center
On a humid afternoon in 2022, officials in southern Thailand’s Phang Nga province gathered dozens of rubber farmers in a community hall. They wanted the farmers to stop clearing and start replanting the forest.
“We know you rely on these trees,’ they told us,” recalled farmer Srirat Songkai, who attended the meeting.
“‘You can keep tapping what you have, but no new planting, no expansion into the forest,” she remembered being told.
Srirat and many farmers had grown rubber, palm oil and fruit trees on land the government classified as protected forests for decades.
Under the new agreement, land users could register their plots and keep harvesting if they agreed to afforest 20-70% of the farmed areas, depending on the forest zone.
About two million hectares of farmland inside protected forests are now under this arrangement or in the process of being included.
Such arrangements are the fruits of advocacy by activists and grassroots organizations, combined with rising pressure on the Thai government to comply with the EU Deforestation Regulations (EUDR). It was considered a soft approach to balance conservation and livelihoods.
Today, young forest trees shade part of Srirat’s land. Her rubber plot is logged digitally and classified as low risk for recent deforestation.
With deforestation and forced evictions associated with rubber production now widely acknowledged, the push to build a plantation-to-tire traceability system has moved to the center of discussions.
Across the Mekong region, efforts are underway, starting with smallholder participation such as in Phang Nga. However, the road is still long and arduous for those who lost their homes and forests to rubber.
Engaging with smallholders
Thailand’s push since the 1990s to become a global car-manufacturing hub has attracted major automakers, tire companies and now EV producers.
Making rubber a priority in national policy enabled the rise of home-grown rubber giants such as Sri Trang, Von Bundit and Southland Rubber Group – whose operations stretch from plantations to latex collection to processing.
Unlike in Myanmar, where concessions are backed by armed groups or in Laos and Cambodia, where foreign investors run the game, smallholders control about 90% of Thailand’s rubber industry. Yet many farm on land that was once forest.
This reliance on smallholders shapes both the country’s approach to resolving land conflicts and the design of traceability systems that begin at the farm level.
A digital system to log farmers and their plots is in place – developed by state agencies including the Forest Department, Land Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives and the State Agricultural Bank.
The Rubber Authority of Thailand (RAOT) now has information on 98% of total growers – 1.6 million farmers and three million hectares.
This registration system paved the way for Thailand’s compliance with the EUDR, which bans products linked to land cleared after December 31, 2020, though enforcement is delayed until December 2026.
Rubber accounts for 92% of Thailand’s EUDR-covered export values, according to a Bank of Thailand study.
Under growing pressure, some Thai companies started trialing EUDR-compliant rubber last year. This amount makes up about 6.2% of total production. Offering higher prices as incentives, these shipments mainly consist of ribbed smoked sheets and cup lumps, used primarily for tire manufacturing.
“We took it [EUDR] as an opportunity to improve our [traceability] system,” said Athiwee Daengkanit of the RAOT’s EUDR task force.
Chinese companies, which import large volumes of rubber from Thailand and export tires to the EU, are also under pressure to comply with EUDR regulations.
Yet a structural gap remains. While compliant rubber flows to the EU, non-compliant output is expected to head to China’s domestic market and beyond, where no equivalent regulation exists.
For Chinese manufacturers in Thailand, joining traceability systems is voluntary, said Athiwee.
“Chinese companies don’t like to lose face. They’ll make sure to maintain their reputation abroad,” argued Yossapong Laoonual, the founding president of the Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand, whose members include both Thai and Chinese automakers.
Civil society’s push for change
Civil society groups have been advocating for responsible and ethical rubber supply chains since the 2010s, when reports of land grabs and deforestation came out – especially in Laos and Cambodia, where public participation is limited.
In Myanmar, WWF Myanmar helped form the Myanmar Sustainable Natural Rubber Association, trained farmers and developed national rubber standards. The group also piloted a digital traceability system covering 210 farmers and about 2,000 hectares.
In Laos and Cambodia, organizations such as Oxfam and Pan Nature facilitated dialogues between affected communities and rubber companies, according to a 2024 report by the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG).
In Laos, Oxfam worked with local authorities and industry groups to promote the Chinese voluntary guidelines issued in 2017 by the China Chamber of Commerce of Metals, Minerals and Chemicals Importers and Exporters (CCCMC).
However, progress was modest due to companies’ suspicion of working with civil society and limited knowledge of Lao language among Chinese staff.
The state-owned Viet Nam Rubber Group (VRG), which lost its Forest Stewardship Council certification in 2015, also joined these dialogues.
Operating plantations in both Laos and Cambodia, the group was also pressured by the Viet Nam Rubber Association and the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry to comply with EUDR, access higher-value markets and improve the industry’s reputation.
Engagement with civil society groups led VRG to publish its handbook on community engagement and forest management for its internal staff, launch a grievance mechanism in Cambodia in 2019 and integrate sustainability goals into its business plans.
According to the MRLG report, Chinese and Vietnamese companies investing abroad for the first time often applied domestic business practices unsuited to local laws or norms. They therefore often persistently claim that their land acquisitions were lawful, despite evidence of harm.
Juliet Lu, a political ecologist at the University of British Columbia who authored the MRLG report, argued that the actual supply chain mechanisms proposed will not be effective and equitable, despite initiatives like the EUDR and FSC “putting very strong symbolic pressure on firms across the rubber sector.”
“Firms are scrambling to understand deforestation in their supply chains, but I don’t think it is pushing them to reduce deforestation, just to cut out smallholders who cannot produce documentation affirming the legality of their plantations, ultimately harming the smallholders more than anyone,” Lu explained.
“What I’ve observed in specific areas is that companies oftentimes get non-forest land but push smallholders into forested areas. Thus, the actors deforesting in situ may be local communities, but the driver of that deforestation is the company. Under the EUDR it’s hard to understand how that kind of displacement will be taken into account,” she added.
To transform the rubber industry, Lu believes companies cannot be trusted to oversee themselves. Third parties like states, NGOs and consumers need to hold them accountable and drive long-term, systemic change.
VRG and CCCMC did not respond to Mekong Eye’s inquiries via email.
Shifts within the industry
In 2019, the Global Platform for Sustainable Natural Rubber (GPSNR) was created, with members ranging from large Chinese firms such as Yunnan Dianyuan Rubber Technology, Shandong Haohua Tire, Linglong Tire and Sailun, to international giants Bridgestone, Continental, Michelin, BMW Group and General Motors.
The platform has attracted many more members from China as Chinese tire makers need help adapting to the EUDR.
Members of the platform must adopt sustainability policies covering legality, human rights and environmental protections. GPSNR also runs a grievance system, in which complaints are mediated first. Companies that fail to act may be removed.
Members must file annual progress reports, and reporting becomes mandatory in 2027. Companies also have to undergo third-party audits and map their supply chains to at least the district level.
“The way rubber is produced can really benefit smallholders,” said Stefano Savi, CEO of GPSNR. “It’s important not to give the message that because there are issues with rubber, you need to change to something else.
“We’re trying to reach out to more end users like vehicle makers. When you want changes in a supply chain, you cannot push it. You can only pull it,” Savi added.
The need for support
In rubber-dependent villages, change is gradual but slowed by complex land-tenure issues and the heavy paperwork required to document farmers and their land plots.
For low-income rubber farmers like Srirat in Phang Nga province, these changes could open the door to better market access.
Srirat said farmers still lack clear guidance and resources. Many also fear exclusion from the supply chain if their rubber fails to meet the required standards, or being forced off their land if government policies change.
“We would like to follow new rules and go through systems to prove our rubber is deforestation-free,” she said. “But we also need support to do it.”
GPSNR operates a fund to support such training and sustainability projects. It now channels about US$3-4 million a year to improve smallholder incomes and working conditions, reduce deforestation and help farmers meet regulations.
So far, it has funded 16,452 smallholders a total of $3 million, though Savi admitted this is not a lot of money to fix the supply chain. They need to get much larger pledges from the industry, he added.
The EV race is speeding up. Yet ethical, responsible tires will hinge on decisions made across the chain – from boardrooms and governments to farms like Srirat’s.
CVD 