Xe Piann National Protected Area (XPNPA) is one of the largest and most important of Lao's 20 protected areas, covering approximately 250,000 ha in parts of Attapeu and Champasak Provinces in the southernmost part of the country. It is internationally significant because of its size, the high level of biodiversity it supports, and because it protects one of the largest areas of lowland semi-evergreen forest in the region, a habitat that is highly threatened. It is also adjacent to Stung Treng Province, northeastern Cambodia, and is near, although not connected, with Virachey National Park. The elevation of the park ranges from approximately 100m in the lowlands near the Xekong River to a few hundred metres above sea level on the low mountains found in some parts of the protected area.

     Previously, XPNPA was funded by a five-year World Bank, Global Environment Facility (GEF) and Lao PDR government administered biodiversity protection and protected area management support project, much like the project implemented in Virachey National Park in Cambodia. However, the World Bank and GEF are no longer working in XPNPA. The Danish government also supported XPNPA after the World Bank pulled out of the park, but they withdrew funding in 2002 after the government changed in Denmark. Since 2001, the INGO the Global Association for People and the Environment (GAPE) has been supporting an integrated community development, education and environmental protection support project in a number of remote villages situated within and near XPNPA.

     The local people living near and inside XPNPA are fortunate in that efforts have so far not been made to evict them from their homelands or stop them entirely from using park resources. However, villagers have been restricted from some of their traditional activities inside the park. There is the need to involve local people more in the management of the park’s important biodiversity resources.

     The major opportunity associated with this protected area relates to it having been the recipient of significant international donor support in the past; this support included introducing ideas about co-management to the provincial and district officials, park staff and villagers. Villagers have been given some management responsibilities inside the park. However, there are no longer sufficient funds available to implement planned co-management activities, even though the protected area staff are interested in supporting co-management oriented work there. They are likely to be quite receptive to ideas associated with co-management. Furthermore, in many ways, due to a lack of funds and other resources, protected area staff are being forced to rely on local people to ensure that the protected area is well managed anyway.

     There are also potentially important opportunities for ethnic Brao people living in and near XPNPA to exchange ideas with ethnic Brao and Kavet people living near Virachey National Park, in Cambodia, since both groups speak the same language and have similar livelihoods. GAPE has already facilitated some initial exchanges of ideas between Brao people from inside XPNPA and ethnic Kavet people who historically lived inside Virachey National Park in Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia. The Brao were very interested to hear about the protected area management experiences of each other in Laos and Cambodia.