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In recent years Laos has experienced rapid changes in land and resource use and tenure. Of those, the allocation of expansive land concessions for rubber production has been amongst the most significant. While rubber is being developed in various ways in Laos, large rubber concessions in southern Laos have frequently overlapped with agricultural and forest lands of importance to local people, replacing them and thus dramatically affecting agrarian livelihoods. This article considers the particular circumstances surrounding large Vietnamese-owned rubber plantation concessions granted in southern Laos, and their impacts on the largely ethnic minority highland population in Bachiengchaleunsouk District, Champasak Province. In particular, I describe how a non-government organisation (NGO) has attempted to support these communities through partnering with local government to study the impacts of the land rubber concessions and associated agriculture transformation, and raise awareness in local communities regarding the Lao laws of relevance to these investments. While the NGO’s efforts have not always gone smoothly—and have combined with other circumstances not connected to its work—the end results have been surprisingly encouraging, even if many problems remain unresolved. The circumstances indicate possible ways in which local people affected by large land concessions can be supported in the context of Laos.