Over the past two decades, South East Asian countries have seen fast
economic growth. However, the increased standard of living is partially
overshadowed by serious environmental degradation. Pressure on land,
especially in the most valuable rice producing flood plains, is rising due to
the expansion of housing areas, low-density industrial parks, plantations
or road construction. At the same time, upstream watershed areas have
been deforested and many rural hinterland areas are falling behind in
terms of development compared to more prosperous coastal zones. This
accelerates rural-urban migration. The need for a more systematic and institutionalized
planning of land utilization at various levels of government
is now widely accepted and institutional frameworks for administrative
approaches of regulatory land use planning have been established in many
countries.