''Across the world, the livelihoods and well-being of rural communities have, since time immemorial, been assured through their customary land and resource management systems. Myanmar is no exception, and these systems have been especially valued in ethnic upland areas. Although increasingly under pressure, these systems still widely continue more or less intact, and continue to retain social legitimacy. Customary tenure systems involve rural communities asserting authority over their local land and resources within their village areas, allocating rights and regulating access and use according to traditional cultural norms. At the simplest these institutions are codified social norms around resource access, and as such have existed across just about every inhabited landscape in the world. They often involve the coordination of farming activities like planting, harvesting and grazing. They are based on a strong local identification with place and ecological landscape, and have evolved dynamically over the long term, giving rise to unique cultural landscapes. They tend to be sophisticated, flexible, and practical in terms of combining common and private rights and responsibilities across diverse resources. Beyond individual villages, they can play a key role in agreeing to inter-village boundaries, and regulating across clusters of villages who gets access to what resources, when and how. They can manage disputes both within and between villages in ways which have cultural legitimacy and embody principles of social justice. Their effectiveness is reflected in how highly valued they are by the communities who rely on them, and they evolve as the social composition and economic needs of the communities evolve and change over time...''