 When we talk about customary tenure in places like the Mekong, what exactly are we talking about? What is a customary tenure system? I think it's good to set the scene and just understanding a little bit about how we generally define customary tenure. So customary tenure can be defined as a set of rules and norms that governs how communities allocate, manage, utilize, and benefit from their land and natural resources. In the Mekong, those communities that practice customary tenure are fisherfolk, they're people who are dependent on the forest, they're people who are dependent on agriculture. Most often in the region, customary tenure can be explained as using or utilizing traditional rotational agroforestry systems or something that we like to call shifting cultivation or swidden agriculture, but there are many different forms of customary tenure. It's important when we're talking about customary tenure, particularly in the Mekong region, to look at it as something that's diverse and fluid and complex. Again, we're looking at customary tenure systems as a landscape here in the Mekong because it's very much a landscape, which includes forest areas, it includes agricultural areas, it includes grazing areas, water areas, but it also includes spiritual areas and sacred sites for communities. What does it mean to talk about customary tenure recognition or why is that important in a place like the Mekong region? While community tenure is normally recognized or endorsed by communities, often it's not formally recognized by official government or legal entities. That often means that communities are left very vulnerable to risks like increased investments. It's important to recognize customary tenure and especially customary forest tenure because you are providing security to those communities that they are able to benefit from their land, safely live and produce on their land, but also contribute to the economy. In the countries that we're working with in the Mekong region, the enabling frameworks to potentially recognize forest rights and customary rights are there. The issue is those pathways to implement these legal policies or legislations might not be very clear yet or might not be developed. It's really important to have these conversations and open up a dialogue about what does recognition mean, what does formalization of those tenure rights mean and how those would be administered, one, for the benefit of the state, but also for the benefit of the communities. So we've talked about customary tenure, what it is, customary tenure systems and such, the importance of recognizing that customary tenure in the Mekong region. When it comes to doing the land forum itself, we'll have an opportunity to discuss further about this. So in the context of the Mekong region land forum, what exactly are we hoping to accomplish through that discussion or what's significant about that? So I think the two sessions for customary tenure will be really interesting for the forum. They'll have a natural progression. So session one will really set the stage for looking at what's happening on the ground, what is the national context and what are different organizations or governments doing about recognition of customary forest tenure on the ground. So we'll have experiences that are being shared from MRLG national partners in Laos and Vietnam. And they'll really sort of show what are the different pathways to recognition of forest tenure. What we want from this session is we want to have a really engaging dialogue that shows that there's a bundle of different approaches that could be implemented for there to be more secure tenure on the ground. In session two, we'll go up to the regional level. So we'll bring what we've learned and what we've discussed in session one and bring it up to looking at these regional platforms, regional platforms like ASEAN, but also other regional initiatives that are looking at securing tenure. And try and see how to leverage these regional platforms to roll out and influence national recognition. We really hope that these sessions will bring discussions around ground-based policy, evidence-based policy, and we'll show that improving customary tenure will both increase local livelihoods, stimulate local national and regional economies, but also help both national and regional level actors achieve sustainable and climate-related development goals. So following on from the Mekong Region Land Forum, in that context we expect to have some good discussions about customary tenure recognition, what this looks like in forest areas, hopefully have some good debates, and then perhaps move forward toward better consensus in terms of what kinds of actions or things can happen later. For your standpoint now, what would you say would be the expectation of what happens after the forum? So where do we go from those discussions and those debates to more concerted action in the future? So I think the first step when talking about customary tenure, because as I said earlier, it's a landscape, it's a flexible concept, it's something that's constantly adapting and changing. The first step to understanding and doing something about customary tenure is having these dialogues. So having the dialogue in and of itself is a great first step. And having more dialogue post this forum would help increase awareness about the different issues that communities face on the ground, who are practicing customary tenure, but also the different issues that maybe administration might face in terms of how to administer or recognize, formally recognize these rights. I think something else that we look forward to in the forum and as a output of the forum would be something like a declaration or a point of action where people really feel motivated to join this community of practice to recognize rights. But they also feel comfortable to share the different obstacles or challenges that they might face when they are trying to roll out these rights, particularly something that might be interesting that would come out of session two could potentially be something at the regional level that pushes and catalyzes the recognition of rights on a national level. And so we're really hoping that we'll have great fruitful discussion and that people will be very engaged and people come out really learning more about customary tenure, but also feeling empowered to be able to do something and to be able to mobilize work and discussion and action on customary tenure in the region.