Land research including land grabbing - global and regional

expand all
collapse all

Websites/Multiple Documents

Source/publisher: Youtube
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-03
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: This website contains mainly news reports about the global rush to buy up or lease farmlands abroad as a strategy to secure basic food supplies or simply for profit. Its purpose is to serve as a resource for those monitoring or researching the issue, particularly social activists, non-government organisations and journalists. The site, known as farmlandgrab.org, is updated daily, with all posts entered according to their original publication date. If you want to track updates in real time, please subscribe to the RSS feed. If you prefer a weekly email, with the titles of all materials posted in the last week, subscribe to the email service. This site was originally set up by GRAIN as a collection of online materials used in the research behind "Seized: The 2008 land grab for food and financial security, a report we issued in October 2008". GRAIN is small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for food sovereignty. We see the current land grab trend as a serious threat to local communities, for reasons outlined in our initial report. farmlandgrab.org is an open project. Although currently maintained by GRAIN, anyone can join in posting materials or developing the site further. Please feel free to upload your own contributions. (Only the lightest editorial oversight will apply. Postings considered off-topic or other are available here.) Or use the ?comments? box under any post to speak up. Just be aware that this site is strictly educational and non-commercial. And if you would like to get more directly involved, please send an email to [email protected]. If you find this website useful, please consider helping us cover the costs of the work that goes into it. You can do this by going to GRAIN?s website and making a donation, no matter how small. We really appreciate the support, and are glad if people who get something out of it can also help participate in what it takes to produce and improve outputs like farmlandgrab.org. If you would like to help out, please click here. Thanks in advance!
Source/publisher: Farmlandgrab.org
Date of entry/update: 2012-10-14
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: A site with a large number of links to resources, including the papers of the 2011 International Conference on Global Land Grabbing..."FAC has been exploring what needs to be done to get different forms of agriculture – food/cash crops, livestock/pastoralism, smallholdings/contract farming/large holdings – moving on a track of increasing productivity and competitiveness. Through a series of debates, dialogues and conferences – at local, national and global levels – the Consortium has been asking in particular: what are the challenges for institutional design and wider policy processes, from local to global arenas?..."
Source/publisher: Future Agricultures Consortium
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-27
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: Organised by the Land Deals Politics Initiative (LDPI) in collaboration with the Journal of Peasant Studies and hosted by the Future Agricultures Consortium at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex...Rich site with full texts of more than 170 papers and presentations from the Conference
Source/publisher: Future Agricultures Consortium (FAC)
2011-04-08
Date of entry/update: 2012-02-27
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "What rural dwellers in the Global South experience as land grabbing, tends to be seen in the Global North as ?agricultural investment?. The World Bank has been at the forefront of a drive to legitimate these investments, convening to win support for a code of conduct based on Responsible Agricultural Investment (RAI) principles. Many key civil society groups reject the proposal for a code of conduct, objecting to the top-down process by which it was formulated and arguing that it was more likely to legitimate than prevent land grabbing. Instead, these groups stood behind the FAO?s Voluntary Guidelines for Responsible Land Investment, which had been under development since the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development in 2009 and had proved a much more inclusive process..."
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute
2012-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2012-05-05
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region. It is based on the premise that debates and decisions around land governance can be enhanced by drawing on the considerable volume of research, documented experience and action-based reflection that is available. The online site seeks to organise the combined work of many researchers, practitioners and policy advocates around key themes relevant to the land security, and hence well-being, of smallholders in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, as well as the wider Mekong Region..."
Source/publisher: Mekong Land Research Forum
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-02
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Land Portal co-facilitated an online dialogue on "Responsible Large -Scale Agricultural Investments in the Mekong Region" between 09th and 27th October 2017...The Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project and the Land Portal co - facilitated an online dialogue on "Responsible Large - Scale Agricultural Investments in the Mekong Region" between 09th and 27th October 2017. Full online dialogue available on Land Portal website here Rationale Since the 1990s, a new wave of large - scale land acquisitions for agricultural investments has emerged world - wide and in the Mekong region, in particular. Land grants for agro - industrial concessions are not new and can be traced back to the colonial era. However, the convergence of the food, financial and energy crises in the mid - 2000s has intensified interest in large - scale forms of agriculture to unprecedented levels. In the Mekong region, significant areas of land have been granted to companies for agro - industrial investments, ie in Cambodia (2.1 M ha), Myanmar (2 M ha), Laos (0.4 M ha) and Viet Nam (0.25 M ha). This has been expected to generate Foreign Direct Investment in the agricultural sector, boost productivity and spur modernisation, and increase government revenues in countries that were thought to be ? land - abundant. ” In reality, the trend has proved problematic, principally due to impacts on smallholder farming systems, limited return to local economies, and overlaps of land claims leading to conflicts and evictions. Government, investors and international and national organisations have been increasingly involved in designing and implementing mechanisms to limit large - scale land acquisitions and better regulate agro - industrial investments. In the case of Cambodia and Lao PDR, governments established moratoria on large concessions..."
Source/publisher: Land Portal, Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project
2017-10-27
Date of entry/update: 2017-11-09
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.13 MB
more
expand all
collapse all

Individual Documents

Description: "Executive summary..... Globally, about 2 billion people live under a customary tenure system, which is a set of rules and norms that govern local peoples’ use of forests, land and other natural resources. This tenure and its accompanying rights are crucial to peoples’ livelihoods, food security and culture, as well as to forest protection, biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Customary tenure has long been insecure and, in many places, it is under growing pressure. But it is also increasingly recognized through a variety of mechanisms, both formal and informal. This report focuses on the recognition of customary tenure of communities living in forested landscapes in Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Viet Nam and includes a case study from Thailand. The report addresses a variety of questions: What is meant by the “recognition” of customary tenure? What mechanisms can be used to strengthen communities’ tenure security? How have these mechanisms been used in the Mekong region and what are the remaining gaps or challenges? What are the opportunities to better integrate customary tenure in ongoing interventions at the landscape, national and regional levels? And what lessons can be learned for the region and beyond? The report identifies three main pathways into which mechanisms for recognizing customary tenure can be categorized: self-recognition by communities; joint recognition by communities and others; and formal recognition in legal frameworks. It introduces a conceptual framework for assessing these mechanisms, including by analysing them through the lenses of rights, livelihoods, governance, gender equity and social inclusion, customary and traditional practices and dispute resolution. Ten case studies illustrate different approaches, often a mix of formal and informal mechanisms that have been used to recognize customary tenure in five countries of the Mekong region covered in this analysis. The report also provides an updated account of customary tenure recognition within legal frameworks, reflecting recent legal reforms in some countries. The analysis shows that legal frameworks in all five countries have provisions enabling communities to use and manage forests and natural resources. In most cases, however, these provisions do not fully recognize customary rights and practices and come with various responsibilities and conditions. Restrictions still apply to the scope of rights, the geographical area and land-use types and the duration over which rights are granted. The report identifies gaps and inconsistencies in legal frameworks and how they are implemented. It suggests promising avenues for improving the recognition of customary tenure and makes specific recommendations for each of the three pathways of recognition. It also describes some entry points for improving recognition of customary tenure that are relevant to most or all countries in the region. These include improved coordination and information-sharing mechanisms, awareness-raising, capacity-building, legal reforms and improved implementation of legal frameworks, documentation, testing and safeguards..."
Source/publisher: RECOFTC – The Center for People and Forests and Mekong Region Land Governance
2022-12-09
Date of entry/update: 2022-12-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 3.42 MB (72 pages) - Original version
more
Description: "အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် အနာဂတ်ဖက်ဒရယ်တပ်မတော်အတွက် မဖြစ်မနေ လိုအပ်သော မြေမှအပ၊ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီက ၄င်းတို့၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားအလို့ငှာ သိမ်းယူထားသော တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား ဖက်ဒရယ်ဒီမိုကရေစီ ပဋိညာဉ် အစိတ်အပိုင်း(၂)၊ အခန်း(၄)၊ ကြားကာလ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရ၏ လုပ်ငန်းတာဝန်များ အပိုဒ် (၂၅)၊ အပိုဒ်ခွဲ (က) အရ ပြည်သူလူထု အကျိုးစီးပွားအတွက် ထိရောက်စွာစီမံခန့်ခွဲ နိုင်ရန်နှင့် ဒီမိုကရေစီ နည်းကျ ထိန်းချုပ်မှုရှိစေရန် အောက်ပါအခြေခံမူများကို ချမှတ်သည်။ အဓိပ္ပာယ်ဖွင့်ဆိုချက်နှင့် ရည်ရွယ်ချက် ၁။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေဆိုသည်မှာ ကြည်း၊ ရေ၊ လေ တပ်ဖွဲ့ဝင်များ နေထိုင်ခြင်း၊ လေ့ကျင့်ခြင်း၊ တပ်နေရာချထား ခြင်း၊ လက်နက်ခဲယမ်းများ သိုလှောင်ခြင်း၊ ထုတ်လုပ်ခြင်း စသည်တို့ ပြုလုပ်သည့် နေရာများအပါအဝင် အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်အကြီးအကဲများနှင့် ထိပ်တန်းအရာရှိများ၏ ကိုယ်ကျိုးစီးပွားအတွက် တနည်းနည်းဖြင့် ရယူ ထားသည့် နေရာများကို ဆိုလိုသည်။ ထိုအချက်တွင် ပြည်ထဲရေးဝန်ကြီးဌာန လက်အောက်ခံ အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ ပိုင်ဆိုင်သော မြေများလည်း အကျူံးဝင်သည်။ ၂။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများ ထားရှိရခြင်း၏ အဓိကရည်ရွယ်ချက်မှာ စစ်ရေးနှင့် လုံခြုံရေး ရည်မှန်းချက်များကို ဖော်ဆောင်နိုင်ရေးအတွက်သာ ဖြစ်စေရမည်။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား စိစစ်ခြင်း ၃။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် တပ်ပိုင်မြေများ၏ စစ်ရေးလိုအပ်ချက်နှင့် ရည်မှန်းချက်များဆိုင်ရာ ကိုက်ညီမှု၊ အများပြည်သူလူထု၏ ဘေးအန္တရာယ်ကင်းရှင်းမှုနှင့် လုံခြုံမှု၊ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား အကြမ်းဖက် စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွားအလို့ငှာ သုံးစွဲခြင်းမှ အကာအကွယ်ပေးနိုင်မှု စသည့်အချက်များ အပေါ်မူတည်၍ စိစစ်ရမည်။ တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရက ပြန်လည်သိမ်းယူခြင်း ၄။ စစ်ရေးနှင့်လုံခြုံရေး ရည်မှန်းချက်များနှင့် ကိုက်ညီခြင်းမရှိဘဲ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်ကောင်စီ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွား အလို့ငှာအသုံးပြုခြင်း၊ အကြမ်းဖက်စစ်တပ်အကြီးအကဲများနှင့် ထိပ်တန်းအရာရှိများ၏ အကျိုးစီးပွား ဖော်ဆောင် ရေး အရင်းအမြစ်များအဖြစ် အသုံးပြုခြင်းများအား စိစစ်တွေ့ရှိရပါက အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရသည် တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား ပြန်လည်သိမ်းယူခြင်း ပြုလုပ်ရမည်။ ပြန်လည်သိမ်းယူထားသော တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား အသုံးပြုခြင်း ၅။ အမျိုးသားညီညွတ်ရေးအစိုးရအဖွဲ့ အစည်းအဝေး၏ အတည်ပြုချက်ဖြင့် စီမံကိန်း၊ ဘဏ္ဍာရေးနှင့် ရင်းနှီးမြှုပ်နှံမှုဝန်ကြီးဌာနသည် သိမ်းယူထားသော တပ်ပိုင်မြေများအား လေလံတင်ရောင်းချခြင်း၊ အများပြည်သူ အကျိုးစီးပွားအလို့ငှာ Infrastructure Development စီမံကိန်းများ အကောင်အထည်ဖော်ဆောင်ခြင်းတို့ကို ပြုလုပ်ရမည်။..."
Source/publisher: National Unity Government of Myanmar
2022-02-24
Date of entry/update: 2022-02-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 353.06 KB
more
Description: "Update by the Shan Human Rights Foundation October 12, 2021 Local farmers oppose Ngwe Yi Pale’s planned coal mining expansion along Pang River in Tangyan, northern Shan State Local farmers are opposing plans by the Mandalay-based Ngwe Yi Pale conglomerate and regime authorities to expand their damaging coal mining operations along the Pang River in Na Hook village tract, Tangyan township, northern Shan State. The new mining area spans about 850 acres of farmlands on both sides of the Pang River, a mile west of the existing coal mine at Tak Liet, where the entire village has been forced to move due to underground excavation. Locals are resisting the expansion not only because of direct farmland loss, but also fears of further damage to the ecology of the Pang River, from pollution and planned mining beneath the riverbed. 14 villages in the area, with over 3,000 residents, rely on the Pang River for their farming livelihoods, growing thousands of acres of rice, corn and ground nuts. The Pang River is the main tributary of the Salween River in Shan State, and a vital water source for tens of thousands of villagers. The plans for the new mine were revealed on May 7, 2021, when 15 farmers were summoned by the chairman of Na Hook village tract, and asked to sign a letter agreeing to coal exploration on their lands. The farmers, from Wan Long, Wan Kyaung, Wan Kao and Wan Peing Moang, were informed of the meeting the day before, and told to bring their ID cards with them. The chairman, Loong Sai Goam Hsa (a.k.a. Loong Sai Sai Sang Saw), told them that Ngwe Yi Pale company would just be doing test digging in small plots of one square meter, so four farmers agreed to sign, but the rest refused to do so. The chairman then forged the signatures of the remaining eleven villagers, which were collected in the afternoon by Aung Ko Hlat, the Ngwe Yi Pale manager based at Tak Liet. On May 8, the farmers wrote a letter to the SSPP/SSA, the local SNLD office and the Mong Ha militia, complaining about the forging of their signatures and asking for help in stopping the new coal mine. Villagers heard nothing further until September 18, when the 15 farmers were again summoned to meet the village tract chairman. This time the Ngwe Yi Pale manager Aung Ko Hlat was also there. The chairman and the manager again urged the farmers to sign their agreement to mining exploration on their lands. However, the farmers said they would never sign, whatever they were offered. They said they relied on their farmlands for their livelihoods and no amount of money could provide for them throughout their lives like their lands. Since this meeting, youth from many villages in the area have been mobilizing and planning action to oppose the new mining. The Na Hook tract chairman Loong Sai Goam Hsa was appointed after the military coup and is not supported by local villagers. The former chairman Sai Bom had sided with the villagers in opposing the coal mining in 2020, and been threatened by the Mong Ha militia as a result..."
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation
2021-10-12
Date of entry/update: 2021-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf pdf
Size: 483.27 KB 532.05 KB 586.8 KB
more
Sub-title: SAC go-ahead for UWSA factories in Tachileik threatens far-reaching pollution - စစ်ကောင်စီက UWSA အား တာချီလိတ်တွင် စက်ရုံတည်ဆောက်ခွင့်ပေးလိုက်ခြင်းသည် ကြီးမားသော ညစ်ညမ်းမှုအဖြစ် ခြိမ်းခြောက်နေ
Description: "Renewed efforts by the United Wa State Army’s Hong Pang conglomerate, backed by the SAC regime, to push through construction of two factories on confiscated land near Tachileik, a kilometer from the Thai border, are being strongly opposed by local communities, who want their farmland returned and fear far-reaching polluting impacts. The factories are planned on 100 acres of land east of Tachileik town, part of a 600- acre plot confiscated from residents of Hong Luek village in 1998-1999 by the Burma Army to set up an industrial zone. The 100 acre-plot was acquired by the Hong Pang company in 2001 for factories which were never built. In 2011, the Hong Luek farmers started appealing to the USDP government for the return of their lands in the industrial zone, which they had continued to farm where possible. Despite ongoing appeals after the NLD government came to power, on September 5, 2019, the Shan State government granted permission to Hong Pang’s Loi Sam Song company to build two factories on their 100 acre plot: a rubber crumb factory and a manganese processing factory. In October 2019, the UWSA company tried to start fencing off the land, but the farmers blocked this. The company sued them for trespass and destruction of property, but did not proceed with construction. During 2020 and early 2021, the farmers continued to block efforts by the company to fence off their farmlands, and to appeal through official channels for land return. On May 6, 2021, three months after the military coup, the company suddenly brought in bulldozers to begin levelling the land. When local farmers and monks again blocked this, police were brought in to protect the company workers, showing that the new regime was backing the UWSA’s plans. During May and June, despite intimidation, locals bravely continued to try and block the company’s construction efforts, but the company was allowed to work at night, during curfew hours, managing to lay cement fencing foundations around the land, which are difficult to remove. Construction has paused since early July, but locals assume this is because of the Covid lockdown. Locals are opposing the factory construction not only due to loss of farmlands, but also fears of pollution, particularly of the Ruak River, which flows past the industrial zone before forming the border with Thailand and flowing into the Mekong River at the Golden Triangle confluence. During the past few years, Thai water authorities have measured dangerous levels of manganese in the Ruak River, from which the Mae Sai water supply is pumped. This is likely due to contamination from existing manganese mines north of Tachileik and manganese ore stockpiles, all in the Ruak River catchment area. Construction of a manganese processing factory directly beside the Ruak River will greatly worsen the existing contamination, which is particularly dangerous for children’s health. Locals also worry about air pollution from both factories, particularly the foul smell of rubber processing, which will permeate the eastern suburbs of Tachileik and adjoining areas of Mae Sai in Thailand, causing adverse health impacts and damaging the tourist industry. Manganese mining and widespread rubber cultivation in Tachileik have already negatively impacted the local environment and livelihoods, for the enrichment of military elites and outside investors. The planned factories are poised to inflict even further damage, on both sides of the border. SHRF strongly supports the brave efforts of the Hong Luek villagers to protect their lands, and urges the SAC and UWSA to immediately cancel the planned factory projects, so that the lands can be returned to their rightful owners. We are inspired by the Mae Sai residents’ successful blocking 20 years ago of Hong Pang’s efforts to build a polluting coal-fired power plant in Tachileik, and hope that Mae Sai communities will mobilize again to join this new struggle to protect our shared Ruak river basin environment..."
Source/publisher: Shan Human Rights Foundation
2021-08-26
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-26
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf pdf pdf
Size: 8.16 MB 6.82 MB 7.9 MB 7.89 MB
more
Description: "Over the past decade, Myanmar has undergone a rapid period of political reform as it has transitioned away from a military junta towards a civilian and democratically elected government. This period has witnessed a series of land governance reforms, being pulled into various directions by Myanmar’s pluralistic society and land use and tenure practices, resulting in overlapping and conflicting policies and legal frameworks in land governance. Struggles over control and access to land and territory are one of the most pressing political issues facing the new National League for Democracy (NLD) government, which won a historical victory in the 2015 general elections under the leadership of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. Maintaining its broad base support and legitimacy largely hinges on the government’s ability to tackle pressing land governance issues, while dealing with various democratic, ethnic, and developmental crises that plague the country (Callahan 2003; Ferguson 2014; Grundy-Warr and Yin 2002; Willis 2013). The military and its cronies have engaged in a long history of land grabbing that has sparked protests and civil strife (Aung 2015; Gee 2005; Jones 2014a; Woods 2011). Ongoing discussion on peace processes between ethnic armed organizations and the central government and military are in large part concerned with territorial boundaries of ethnic states and authority within them (Einzenberger 2016; Hong 2017; Kramer 2015). Insecure peasant access to and unclear ownership over land, due to the central government’s lack of recognition of customary land tenure systems, has hampered prospects of rural economic development throughout the country (Boutry et al. 2017; Huard 2016). This paper looks at how farmers and state actors shape and reshape legal pluralism within the context of dual authority, where both the Myanmar central government and the Karen National Union1 (KNU), the latter being the leading political organization representing the Karen’s struggle for political self-determination, are responsible for land management in their respective, albeit overlapping, territories. It illustrates the ongoing power struggle centered on the central government’s and the KNU’s interests and strategies to increase the land area under their respective administration, and how this corresponds with customary tenure systems and farmers’ views on land tenure security and strategies to ensure their land rights. Two village case studies in Karen State are used to illustrate how farmers shape their strategies to secure their land rights while navigating through the blurred boundaries of competing legal systems and spaces, embedded in the context of dual authority. The paper looks at state spatiality as complex processes and practices of socio-spatial regulation across scales shaping and reshaping state-society relations. Placing dual authority as one of the building blocks for state transformation, it illustrates how political authority produces rights, and vice versa (Lund and Rahman 2018), within the context of legal and institutional pluralism. It shows how these processes and practices are rooted in the production of political space, centering on farmers’ strategies to strengthen their land rights, and how these are entangled in the central government-farmers-KNU power relations. In particular, it looks at: (1) the conflicting legal frameworks pertaining to land governance in the country; (2) how these legal frameworks are negotiated and appropriated at the village level through various means and institutional set up, including how they interact with customary land rights; and (3) how it reflects back on and influences farmers’ land tenure security. Building on legal pluralism research (von Benda-Beckmann, von Benda-Beckmann, and Spiertz 1996; Moore 1986; Van der Linden 1989), we argue that while inconsistent policies and legal frameworks leave the door wide open for land expropriation, as powerful actors shop for suitable and applicable laws to serve their interests, it also serves as an entry point for less powerful actors to increase their room to maneuver and reclaim their rights. Here, rather than portraying inconsistent, conflicting legal frameworks as merely a sign of a weak legal system in Myanmar’s land governance, we position it as an entry point for farmers and local communities to fight for their land rights. Building on Mann’s definition of states as merely [consisting of] ‘some degree of authoritative rule making and some organized political force’ (Brenner et al. 2003, 125), we view states as both sets of institutions and an expression of social power relations. As stated by Jones (2014b, 146): ‘States are seen as being produced, transformed and constrained by conflicts between social forces, … as they struggle for power and control over resources’. 2 Building on Brenner et al.’s (2003, 11) definition of states as ‘dynamically evolving spatial entities that continually mold and reshape the geographies of the very social relations they aspire to regulate, control and/or restructure’, we view state transformation processes as the creation of new political space and institutional emergence shaped by ongoing power struggles and contestation between and within political actors across scales. Or, as stated by Lefebvre (2003, 99): ‘State space hinders the transformation that would lead to the production of a differential space’. Here, state transformation is not limited to formal state actors, but also includes other actors and institutions with statutory capacity. Or, as stated by Lund and Rachman (2016, 1201): ‘The mutual constitution of rights and authority takes place in many institutional settings … Government institutions are not the only source of state effects’. The paper contributes to the wider literature on legal pluralism and state transformation processes in two ways. First, it brings to light the blurred boundary between the different forms of (legal) ordering (e.g. state law, customary law, religious law), and thus between legal systems and spaces. It argues that while legal scholars tend to view legal pluralism as the conception of different, yet interlinked legal systems and spaces, they are in fact more than just a compilation of different legal orders. On the contrary, it illustrates the messy realities where boundaries between the different forms of ordering are at best blurred, as actors and institutions transcend the different legal systems and spaces in pursuit of their interests, reconfiguring the boundaries of those spaces in the process. Second, it presents the concept of dual authority as a theoretical underpinning to unpack the politics of legal pluralism, centering on the question of ‘who makes the law’. Current discourse on legal pluralism has highlighted the importance of power analysis surrounding the politics of inclusion and exclusion in the overall shaping of law-society relations (Boelens, Bustamante, and de Vos 2007). However, it lacks a theoretical concept to unpack the political power shaping and reshaping the plurality of legal practices (Barzilai 2008). Legal pluralism entails that different institutions can assume jurisdiction, depending on how they view and cope with the conflict situation emerging from overlapping policies and legal frameworks. As stated by von Benda-Beckmann (1981, 145): ‘While actors in a dispute shop for various institutions of dispute settlement, institutions also shop for dispute. Depending on which aspect of the dispute is emphasized, a different institution can assume jurisdiction’. The case studies examined in this paper show how jurisdiction itself is blurred by plural legal systems and state spaces of dual authority that interpenetrate one another. As such, political authority and rights that emanate from different power domains are in a constant state of flux. Rights can emerge and submerge, depending on what legal system is referred to as well as what authority and legitimacy actors attribute it in a particular place and time. It highlights the centrality of political space and institutional emergence in state transformation processes through the illustration of how ‘state space is represented and imagined both in geopolitical struggles and in everyday life’ (Brenner et al. 2003, 7). Additionally, it raises the question as to what ‘state law’ and ‘non-state law’ is and where the boundaries lie in the context of multiple political spaces and institutions competing for authority (Sikor and Lund 2009), as manifested in the context of dual authority (Huard 2016). Taking two neighboring villages in mixed government-KNU controlled areas in Karen state as a case study, the paper shows the localized dynamics that shape the creation of new political spaces, manifested in states actors’ strategies to increase political authority and farmers’ strategies to strengthen their land rights, and how the two are intertwined within the established, yet ever changing geography of state regulation..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies
2019-10-31
Date of entry/update: 2021-08-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 2.13 MB
more
Description: "Overview: The poor, ethnic minorities and women in particular suffer marginalisation that is exacerbated by circumscribed access to land and insecurity of tenure. Ethnic minority land use practices, notably shifting cultivation, are criminalised, while citizenship issues and outright discrimination and ethnic chauvinism have excluded or displaced minorities from access to resources as majority farmers have increasingly availed themselves of land and other resources since upland margins have become more accessible. In some cases, security-oriented programs have distanced ethnic minority communities from land and other resources that are the basis of their livelihoods. Women have seen customary rights in land weakened by formalisation that privileges officially designated heads of households, who are usually male. Decisions and meetings often mainly involve men, and land use planning can neglect land-based resources that are primarily in women's work domains.....Key trends and dynamics: The concept of marginalisation brings together other key themes to specify the negative impacts of land relations on certain groups of people around the Mekong region. The term ‘marginalised’ can be defined as representing the treatment of a person or a group as insignificant or peripheral. There are three important relations to highlight here. Firstly, marginalisation is a process rather than an antecedent condition. Secondly, one becomes marginalised from something, and in this case marginalisation primarily involves access to, control of, or use of land. Thirdly, the marginalised are placed in relation to others who do not suffer the same tribulations. For this latter point, it is possible to apply multiple scales, such as highlighting individuals within a household or a community, or a significant social sub-group or ethnic minority within a particular nation-state. It could be argued that the Mekong region itself is marginalised within global trade and power relations, caught up in power struggles between large capitalist forces such as the USA and China. However, the larger the scale of reference, the greater the risk that inequalities within go unqualified. Although processes of marginalisation take place in specific localised ways, it is important to reflect on the bigger picture of economic transformation in the Mekong region. At one level, it is important to take a historical perspective in order to view the marginalising effect of land policies over the long term. This includes colonial-era law drafted in support of plantation economies, certain aspects of which are retained in present-day statutory law. Moving towards recent economic policy, when considering access to and control of land for smallholders and the rural poor, the marketisation of agriculture, with the introduction of ‘boom crops’ has a strong impact when unaccompanied by propoor policies (Lamb et al. 2015). Neoliberalism encourages well-connected national elites to take control of markets and resources that bolsters their land-based wealth at the expense of the poor (Springer 2011). This is clearly seen in the advent of crony capitalism in Myanmar (Global Witness 2015; Woods 2011). A point of focus for research on marginalising practices highlights large-scale land investments that are discriminatory to local land users, particularly those who make a living outside of statesupported market arenas that have become the priority of developmentalist regimes. In Cambodia, Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) have led to the clearing of farmland and forest under use by indigenous peoples, undermining community resource management practices (Bues 2011). They have also affected the ability of indigenous groups to register themselves under collective land titling, while most concession labour is given to in-migrants (Prachvuthy 2011). Similarly, concessions in Lao PDR have enclosed space, shutting it off to communities who were previously reliant on variety of resources in the designated zone (Baird 2011). In Myanmar, Gittleman and Brown (2014) assert that nearly 1,000 families will be displaced to make way for Thilawa Special Economic Zone, and that the process of this relocation fails to meet international guidelines. There are certain social sub-groups who can be highlighted as being on the receiving end of marginalising processes. However, it is important to clarify that each sub-group should not be assumed to carry a singular identity, and that disparity will be found within. Firstly, large-scale land development can marginalise smallholders who already may be poorly served by statutory law on tenure security. Drbohlav and Hejkrlik (2018) highlight a case from Cambodia where 1,400 fishing families were relocated to make way for a land concession in the Botum Sakor National Park. The study shows that the livelihoods of those relocated has worsened, with employment issues, poor infrastructure at the relocation site, and issues over access to health and education services. Nguyen, Westen and Zoomers (2014) show how the acquisition of land for infrastructure development in peri-urban areas of central Vietnam takes little account of the wishes of local farming households whose land is taken. Ethnic minorities frequently suffer from the exploitation of land for new investment ventures. For example, there is evidence of multiple land grabs from the Ta’ang minority in Shan State, Myanmar, in order to serve military needs such as housing, training, and income generation through hydropower, oil and gas pipelines (Ta’ang Student and Youth Organization 2011). There is much attention brought to the plight of indigenous communities in Ratanakiri, Cambodia, who have lost their land to rubber plantations operated by the Vietnamese company HAGL (Work 2016). In the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, indigenous sea nomads in Southern Thailand have suffered from land dispossession to make way for tourism developments (Neef et al. 2018). However, as a counterpoint Mellac (2011) notes that customary practices for Tai-speaking groups in Northern Vietnam have endured during periods of collectivisation and then individualised marketdriven land use rights. In this way, ethnic groups do display the solidarity and power to ride out the potential negative impacts from outside pressures. Despite legal declarations of equality, patriarchal practices in Mekong countries favour men who monopolise control of land as heads of households (see also the ‘Gender and land’ key theme for further details). They frequently maintain control of land through titling programmes. In Ratanakiri Province, Cambodia, women and girls are becoming marginalised as a consequence of emerging capitalist relations, with reduced autonomy and agency including the recognition of their land rights (Mi Young Park and Maffii 2017). However, there are actions to let women’s voices be heard. In Myanmar, a coalition of over 100 organisations lobbied for the inclusion of women in discussions over National Land Use Policy (NLUP) and helped bring them to the table in the peace process (Faxon 2017; Faxon, Furlong, and Phyu 2015). The urban poor also suffer from insecure land tenure while residing in informal housing, leaving them open to the threat of forced eviction (Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee 2009; Chi Mgbako et al. 2010). Bugalski and Pred (2010) note how a land titling programme in Phnom Penh excluded certain informal communities, thereby exacerbating inequalities (see key theme on ‘Urban land governance’ for further information). There are various ways in which marginalisation is felt by affected communities. Most clearly in relation to land is dispossession (see key theme on ‘Land dispossession/land grabbing’). Engvall and Kokko (2007) make a statistical link between land tenure security and poverty in Cambodia, where a proposed land reform package could result in a 16% fall in poverty incidence for landowning rural households and a 30% fall for the landless. A report from Myanmar looks at rural debt, and how its emergence through entry into marketised agriculture can result in distress sales of land (Kloeppinger-todd and Sandar 2013). Marginalisation from access to land can also impact upon food security for smallholder farmers, where the emergence of cash cropping takes precedence over production for local consumption (Land Core Group 2010; Rammohan and Pritchard 2014). A further impact is cultural, particularly considering that the capitalisation of land frequently ignores other important meanings to its users. By isolating access, the very cultural identity of users can be threatened, where land operates as a key identifier..."
Source/publisher: Mekong Land Research Forum
2021-06-00
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 337.1 KB
more
Topic: Land grab; resistance; agrarian climate justice; Myanmar; Burma; democracy
Topic: Land grab; resistance; agrarian climate justice; Myanmar; Burma; democracy
Description: "ABSTRACT: The intersection between land grabs and climate change mitigation politics in Myanmar has created new political opportunities for scaling up, expanding and deepening struggles toward ‘agrarian climate justice’. Building on the concepts of ‘political opportunities’ and ‘rural democratization’ to understand how rural politics is relevant to national regime changes in the process of deepening democracy, this paper argues that scaling up beyond the local level becomes necessary to counter the concentration of power at higher levels. At the same time, this vertical process is inextricable from building horizontal networks and rooting struggles in communities. By looking at national-level land policy advocacy for more just land laws, accountability politics in mining at a regional level in the southern Tanintharyi region, and the bottom-up establishment of local indigenous territories, this paper illustrates how expanding these struggles becomes necessary, but is also accompanied by potential faultlines. These fault-lines include divergent political tendencies within the network and challenges to working in areas contested by the Burmese state and ethnic armed organizations.....Introduction: Political reactions ‘from below’ to what has been termed ‘the global land grab’ following the 2007/2008 financial crisis have been diverse, ranging from resistance to grabs and mobilizations across local, regional, national and transnational levels, to negotiations to improve compensation or for better terms of incorporation into land deals (Hall et al. 2015; Borras and Franco 2013). Attention has been given to the importance of ‘convergence’ across struggles, around common demands for system change, food sovereignty or climate justice as a strategy to strengthen demands against powerful actors (Tramel 2018; Mills 2018; Claeys and Delgado Pugley 2017). However, linking local and national struggles with transnational movements also brings accompanying tensions, as these have their own histories (Edelman and Borras 2016; Peluso, Afiff, and Rachman 2008). While studies have looked at different ways in which mobilizations have engaged with the state, this contribution looks specifically at the context of a national regime transition in Myanmar, namely from authoritarian militarism to nominal democracy, and how agrarian resistance shapes and is shaped by these changes at national level. Reforms in 2011/2012 in Myanmar under President Thein Sein intensified entry of capital into infrastructure, land and extractive industries, deepening liberalization policies that began in 1988 under the SLORC/SPDC governments. Open conflict still continues between the Burmese military and ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) in some areas. In others, ceasefires have created a situation of ‘neither war nor peace economy’, building on earlier rounds of ceasefires in the 1990s, in which the Burmese military steered EAOs toward businesses, granting them concessions as part of a strategy of political neutralization (Kramer forthcoming). The term ‘ceasefire capitalism’, has similarly been used to describe the entry of foreign and domestic capital into infrastructure development, large-scale land concessions, mining licenses and forest demarcation in previous conflict areas (Woods 2011). National elites linked to the military are consolidating a new form of crony capitalism, building on the historic concentration of power in businesses and conglomerates in what has sometimes been considered an emerging oligarchy (Jones 2014; Ford, Gillan, and Thein 2016). While these changes have created threats, they have also opened political opportunities for mobilizations ‘from below’, in the context of increased formal civil and political rights even as targeted repression through jailing and threatening of farmers and journalists still persists. New land laws, such as the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Lands Management Law (2012) and the Farmland Law (2012), facilitate the acquisition of land by powerful actors, but discussions around the National Land Use Policy (NLUP) have also created openings for actors ‘from below’ to influence policy-making and attempt to shift this balance of power (Franco and Ju 2016). Similarly, multi-stakeholder platforms such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) have created new frameworks for investment that can threaten existing livelihoods, but have also allowed civil society actors to push for greater participation. ‘Green grabs’, interconnected with land grabs (Fairhead, Leach, and Scoones 2012; Borras and Franco 2020), have threatened the livelihoods of forest users but have prompted grassroots to mobilize around indigenous rights (CAT 2018, 2020; Morton 2017). Prior to the recent political liberalization, there was a systematic weakness of social forces that could challenge the model of state-facilitated crony capitalism, such as labor organizations, the middle class or radical food-sovereignty or peasant movement (Jones 2014; Malseed 2008). However, recently there has been emerging ground level resistance by farmers through ploughing protests, collective judicial action against land grabs, regional CSOs helping farmers through networking and training, and other tactics such as letter writing, negotiations and protest (TNI 2015a; LIOH 2015). There have also been campaigns against large-scale dams and mining and palm oil concessions (ALARM et al. 2018; Tarkapaw et al. 2015; Suhardiman, Rutherford, and Bright 2017; Park 2019) and demands for the recognition of customary tenure systems in the ethnic borderland areas (CAT 2018, 2020; ECDF 2016). In this context, activists in Myanmar have found opportunities and challenges in strengthening local community-building while at the same time strengthening national-level mobilizing and advocacy. As this paper will argue, they are both necessary in the struggle toward ‘agrarian climate justice’ and in the wider process of deepening democracy. National-level advocacy can create ‘openings’..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies via Routledge (London)
2021-01-14
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 2.54 MB
more
Topic: Gender; generation; social justice; agrarian transformation; environmental transformation; rural politics
Topic: Gender; generation; social justice; agrarian transformation; environmental transformation; rural politics
Description: "ABSTRACT: The changes that have swept rural Myanmar, transforming landscapes and affecting livelihoods, have ignited rural politics and civil society and grassroot organizations’ strategies to counter, resist, negotiate and adapt to these changes. Rural politics have centred on broad calls for agrarian and environmental rights and social justice that do not address women’s rights, gender and generational justice explicitly. Based on fieldwork carried out in Myanmar’s Taninthary region, and engagement with grassroots organizations, I examine how gender and generational power dynamics play out, transform and are transformed in processes of agrarian and environmental change and rural politics.....Introduction: In Myanmar, land and natural resources have been historically the focus of extractivist initiatives that benefited colonial administrations, central states, the military and powerful elites and deprived small farmers, fishers and forest-dependent groups, including ethnic groups, particularly women and girls, of access to natural resources, shelter and livelihoods (Karen Human Rights Group 2006, 2015; Tavoyan Women’s Union 2015; Barbesgaard 2019; see also Kramer forthcoming; Sekine forthcoming, this collection). Starting in 2012 the neoliberal orientation of recent civilian governments, discursively legitimized by agendas for economic growth, sustainable development and climate change mitigation and adaptation, has bolstered this tendency. Since 2011, legal reforms in the areas of land use, land conversion, and investments have facilitated the entrance and operations of international capital and investors in the country. In addition, the 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Union Government (UG) and several Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs) has enabled access of domestic and foreign capital to once secluded areas, including Tanintharyi region in the South, which had long been a hotspot of conflict and ethnic insurgency and had thus remained relatively isolated (Bryant 1994; Malseed 2009; Woods 2015a, 2015b). The surge of extractive and infrastructure development initiatives, combined with conservation plans to restrict access to protected and designated areas, have accelerated the transformation of Myanmar’s rural landscapes and livelihoods. This, in turn, has sparked civil society and grassroots organizations’ strategies and actions to resist, negotiate and adapt to these changes. Members of affected communities, often with support from grassroots and local civil society organizations, have resisted, mobilized and strategized on ways to advance their own counter-visions of development (Park 2019). Coupled with opportunities to engage in ‘contentious politics’ (Tarrow 1994; Tilly 2002, 2004) as noted in the introductory article of this Special Issue, the mobilization from below has expanded the repertoire of ‘contentious performances’ that are being developed dynamically and in conversation with the political, social and economic context (Tilly 2002, 2004). In Myanmar, just like in other countries in the region, women and men, young and old, have taken active part in these political struggles; women, notably, have been at the forefront of protests and diverse forms of activism, often at the cost of their bodily integrity and the breakdown in family relations. Research from other countries confirms that women, including older women, participated in protests often as a strategy to curb violent repression and retaliation by the military and the police, to protect their sons and husbands, and in some cases as activists in their own right (see for example, Brickell 2014; Lamb et al. 2017; Park and Maffii 2017; Tavoyan Women’s Union 2015; Morgan 2017). While these changes affect different people, including their political agency, in ways that are mediated by gender, age, ethnicity and other social and power differences, the urgency and fluidity of the issues on the ground requires cohesion in mobilization and swift action. Partly because of this, rural politics have tended to centre on broad calls for agrarian and environmental rights and social justice that do not address women’s rights, gender equality and generational justice explicitly. Women’s groups have also been often side-lined; whereas youth have been engaged by environmental and ethnic grassroots groups within the frame of well-defined scripts that do not challenge power, gender and age hierarchies. The exclusion of women’s groups and gender equality from agrarian and environmental justice movements, and the reasons underlying it, have been highlighted by many feminist scholars (see for example, Harris 2015; Park 2018; Deere 2003; Stephen 2006; Krishna 2015) who have called for urgent convergence to avoid the risk that movements for social justice could be void of gender and generational justice. Krishna (2015), for example, notes that in India some of the larger movements that have led to state formation have failed to recognize women’s claims for gender justice in spite of their conspicuous participation and even leadership. In the Andes, Harris (2015, 171) highlights the disconnect between feminist and indigenous and other movements and calls for a better articulation of ‘feminist analytics and organizing’, advocating for going beyond women’s engagement towards adoption of a feminist agenda that questions power structures. The fight against patriarchy has also been central to the demands of peasant women in international movements such as La Via Campesina. This article explores the potential of rural politics to be catalytic of change that promotes gender and generational justice and contributes to making the case for the need for not one but multiple convergences – feminist political ecology with feminist political economy, agrarian and environmental movements with feminist movements. Based on fieldwork conducted in Tanintharyi between 2014 and 2018 and engagement with local grassroots organizations, I examine how gender and generational power dynamics play out, transform and are transformed in processes of agrarian and environmental change and rural politics. I look at the conditions that support a (re)negotiation of gender roles and relations and how these could be conducive to gender-transformative rural politics, that is, politics that fosters gender equality and generational justice as a key dimension of social change and social justice (Cornwall 2014)..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies via Routledge (London)
2021-01-12
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 2.53 MB
more
Topic: Rural working people; national land network; movement building; Land in Our Hands; Myanmar; right to land; political transition
Topic: Rural working people; national land network; movement building; Land in Our Hands; Myanmar; right to land; political transition
Description: "ABSTRACT: The transition from military dictatorship to an electoral regime has opened limited political spaces for social activism in Myanmar. Some have called the unfolding situation a ‘transition to democracy’. But this is far from the reality for some, if not most, of Myanmar’s ‘rural working people’. This paper explores the trajectory of the national land network called Land in Our Hands (LIOH or Doe Myay), which came into formal existence in 2014. This paper attempts to lay out a more comprehensive account of the historical legacies and internal and external pressures that have been shaping LIOH as a movement building initiative, and in relation to three key dimensions: its identity politics; its ideology and class base; and its political work.....Introduction: The transition from military dictatorship to an electoral regime has opened limited political spaces for social activism in Myanmar. Today’s electoral regime is still a largely elite-controlled political situation, with relatively more competitive elections but under unevenly restrictive conditions, including continued restricted access to basic democratic rights for much of the population especially outside the main urban areas. This goes hand in hand with a centrally controlled economic opening and continuing armed conflict in parts of the country. While the political space (such as it is) may be new, social movement in Myanmar is not. Social movements of different forms and scales continued to exist occupying non-traditional political spaces, especially local spaces, throughout the dark ages of military rule beginning from 1962. In the remote ethnic states, rural villagers have been using everyday forms of resistance such as ‘hiding resources, ignoring orders, packing road embankments with sticks during forced labour, informing human rights groups but not the military’ in order to protect their territories and communities (Malseed 2009, 380), which as a whole formed a grassroots movement (Malseed 2008). Some movements such as the Ba Ka Tha (All Burma Federation of Student Union) went underground after the brutal crackdown of the 1988 pro-democracy uprising to continue training student activists in leftwing political ideology. Others, including students and ethnic-based democracy movements, transformed into armed struggles along the Chinese, Thai and Indian borders. Diaspora-driven human rights coalitions sprang up in Western countries, exposing violations and atrocities committed by the military regime and lobbying for support for the democratic forces working inside and outside the country. Some have called the unfolding situation a ‘transition to democracy’ (Sein 2017). But this is far from the reality for some, if not most, of Myanmar’s ‘rural working people’. In this paper, we draw on Shivji’s (2017) conception of ‘working people’ to encompass a diverse constituency of people currently struggling to reproduce themselves and their households under contemporary political-economic conditions in Myanmar..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies via Routledge (London)
2021-02-09
Date of entry/update: 2021-04-27
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 2.22 MB
more
Description: "This report provides an in-depth understanding of customary land dispute resolution in Kayin State, Eastern Bago Region and Shan State and its interaction with the formal statutory Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar system. A participatory community-based research approach was used to understand customary practices concerning land, including how land title is defined, enforced and how land disputes are contested, negotiated and resolved at the community level. Based on the perceptions of local people and village leaders in the three research sites, the report identifies current practices as well as prior work on this topic in Myanmar and seeks to identify ongoing dispute resolution mechanisms and practices used by communities in ethnic nationality areas with a view to informing policy and programming on restitution. Key to this analysis is the question of what a genuine restitution process might look like in Myanmar and how customary practices might be integrated into it. Furthermore, if a genuine restitution process was established, what realistic capacity is there to integrate customary dispute mechanisms and authorities into it..."
Creator/author:
2019-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2020-05-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : PDF
Size: 10.1 MB
more
Description: "Refugees from conflict in the northern part of Myanmar’s Shan state say they are worried that their land could be confiscated for Chinese-backed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)-related infrastructure projects while they are unable to return because of fighting. In 2011, armed conflict between Myanmar’s military and several insurgent groups in the area broke out in northern Shan. Fighting intensified in 2015 as the military began conflict with the Restoration Council of Shan State (RCSS). The fighting has caused nearly 17,000 IDP to seek shelter in Namtu, Kutkai, Namhkam and Mong Yawng townships according to statistics kept by volunteer organizations. These IDP are worried because they don’t have the proper legal documentation for lands that they consider to be ancestral. Seng Tu, an internally displaced person (IDP) living in the Kutkai refugee camp, and a member of the IDP farmland committee, told RFA’s Myanmar Service that fellow refugees are very concerned and want a freeze on the Chinese projects. “The government is planning projects like reservoirs or agricultural zones on our land without our knowledge,” he said..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
2019-12-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-12-07
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description: "Land disputes between farmers and the Burma Army in northern Shan State has been going on for decades. Villagers in Kyaukme Gyi have been trying to get back thousands of acres they say the Army (aka Tatmadaw) stole from them in 2000. Farmers started cultivating these fields again in 2017. The Tatmadaw responded by opening criminal cases against them. “The Army has charged us for various offences (over the years),” Eh Naw, a farmer told SHAN. “A police officer told us the Army recently opened a new case against 13 farmers.” “We’re being charged for plowing our fields…we can’t continue working our farms because we need to attend court hearings.” Kham, also a farmer from Kyaukme Gyi, said after their land was seized they no longer have a regular income and struggle to survive and send their children to school. Three members of her family have been charged for cultivating their confiscated farms..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: "Shan Herald Agency for News" (Myanmar)
2019-11-11
Date of entry/update: 2019-11-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description: "DS has just published a major 184-page legal report on the land grabbing in Myanmar and how these processes constitute internationally wrongful acts. The report includes a 21-step legal roadmap to end land grabbing once and for in Myanmar, a nation that is one of the worst in the world in Although the general power of States to compulsorily acquire, expropriate or otherwise confiscate or ‘grab’ land, homes and properties is legislatively recognised in virtually all national legal systems, to be lawful these processes generally carry with them five fundamental pre-conditions. Namely, when housing, land or property rights are revoked or limited through these processes, this can only be carried out when the taking concerned is: 1) subject to law and due process; 2) subject to the general principles of international law; 3) in the interest of society and not for the benefit of another private party; 4) proportionate, reasonable and subject to a fair balance test between the cost and the aim sought; and 5) subject to the provision of just and satisfactory compensation..."
Source/publisher: "Displacement Solutions" (Switzerland) via Reliefweb
2019-10-21
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-21
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 1.59 MB (184 pages)
more
Description: "Across the world, peasants, pastoralists, fishers, and indigenous peoples are losing their once effective control over the land, water, wetlands, pastures, fishing grounds and forests on which they depend including the right to decide how these natural resources will be used, when and by whom, at what scale and for what purposes, often for generations to come. This process known as landgrabbing takes place through different mechanisms (concessions, long-term leases, contract farming), involving different actors (public, private, foreign, domestic) and for different reasons (including for agricul- ture, forestry, energy, mining, industry, infrastructure, real estate, tourism, and conservation).1 In this process, existing uses and meanings of land and territories are overridden, shifting from locally adapted, culturally appropriate, mostly small-scale and labour intensive use towards more large-scale, capital-intensive and extractive forms of resource appropriation. The implications of this model of development in terms of human rights, rural livelihoods, food security, and ecology have been well documented. The role of the European Union (EU) in landgrabbing is manifold. EU actors are involved in the financing of large-scale land deals worldwide. This occurs through forms of private finance (companies, banks, pension funds, hedge funds, brokerage firms, insurance groups), public finance (development finance and other state sponsored projects), and increasingly through a combination of both in the shape of public-private partnerships, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and other forms of blended finance’. Figures 1 and 2 provide an overview of the involvement of EU investors in large-scale land deals in the global South..."
Creator/author:
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI) ( Netherlands)
2019-09-06
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-18
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf
Size: 227.57 KB
more
Description: "Residents of central Myanmar's Mandalay region said Thursday that they are increasingly fearful of forced property and farmland confiscations in areas slated for the construction of a high-speed railway running from Kunming in southwestern China to their city under the massive Belt and Road Initiative. Two state-owned companies — Myanmar Railways and China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group Co. Ltd. — signed a memorandum of understanding a year ago to conduct a feasibility study for a stretch of longer railway from Mandalay to Muse in Myanmar's northern Shan state. The overall project is a key part of the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) under the BRI, and is expected to boost trade between the two countries. The CMEC entails a central road and rail transport infrastructure from southwestern China’s Yunnan province through Muse and Mandalay to the town of Khaukphyu in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, where a major seaport and special economic zone are slated for construction. Area villagers who attended a public forum on an environmental assessment of railway project in Mandalay’s Patheingyi township voiced concerns over losing their homes and farmland to the rail line to be built by both China and Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: "Radio Free Asia (RFA)" (USA)
2019-10-10
Date of entry/update: 2019-10-12
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
more
Description: "Kye Zu Daw village is located along the banks of the Heinzel River in Ye Phyu Township, Tanintharyi Region in Southeast Myanmar. The village of approximately 53 households has a long history of displacement and dispossession. Forced to flee from their lands during the civil war, large swathes of their lands have now been enveloped by Protected Areas and agribusiness concessions during their absence. Today, villagers are squeezed between land grabs by private companies for oil palm and rubber plantations on one side, and the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve on the other, leaving them with limited livelihood options and forcing them to struggle to provide for their families. Forced to leave their village as IDPs and refugees in 1992 during the civil war, villagers from Kye Zu Daw returned to their ancestral lands in 2012 to find their lands had been confiscated. Faced with few options, in 2016 Kye Zu Daw villagers decided that they would start the process of trying to register their lands, which had been categorised as VFV by the government. Despite their attempts to legally recover and register their lands, villagers have faced consistent barriers. They have been sued over three times by agribusiness companies, faced abuse and intimidation from the Department of Land Management and Statistics (DALMS), and being forced to compete with companies on an unequal playing field to register their lands under a legal framework that does not reflect how land is used by communities in Myanmar and strips them of their customary and communal land rights. As a result of the consistent hardship and discrimination faced by Kye Zu Daw villagers in recovering their lands, many have given up hope, some even considering returning to the border.....ဆုတ်လည်းစူး၊ စားလည်းရူး ပြည်တော်ပြန် စစ်ပြေးဒုက္ခသည်များ မြေယာအတည်တကျ အခြေချနေထိုင်ရေး ရုန်းကန်နေရမှု (ရေးဖြူမြို့နယ်)..."
Source/publisher: "Progressive Voice" via Tanintharyi Friends
2019-08-30
Date of entry/update: 2019-09-06
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language:
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.57 MB 1.51 MB
more
Description: ''After a spout of optimism surrounding Myanmar’s so-called democratic transition in the post-2010 period, more recent work by CSOs and academics have emphasized the rampant and violent processes of land and ocean grabbing that this transition is facilitating. Drawing on a case from Northern Tanintharyi in the Southeast of the country, this article attempts to historicize contemporary accounts of these grabbing processes. Developing a landscape-approach, it supports recent academic calls to move beyond the focus on a single resource or a single case and instead under- stand ‘grabs’ in relation to broader processes of agrarian-environmental transformations. Emphasis is placed on the ‘control-grabbing’ aspect of this ongoing transformation. The article shows how the control-grabbing of both ocean- and land-space facilitated the state’s appropriation of rent from productive capital in the fisheries and offshore gas sector, while bolstering state sovereignty over historically contested spaces. For villagers on the ground, this has had widespread ramifications, differentiated along lines of class and gender. Explaining and describing this longer-term agrarian-environmental transformation of the landscape helps to ground existing accounts of the managed nature of Myanmar’s current transition. In so doing, the article also questions the efficacy of prevailing policy proposals for how to solve the ensuing conflicts over and in the landscape...''
Creator/author: Mads Barbesgaard
Source/publisher: Transnational Institute (TNI)
2018-11-20
Date of entry/update: 2019-01-23
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 310.75 KB
more
Description: "As the economy thrives, we examine the plight of Ethiopians forced from their land to make way for foreign investors...the growth seen in agriculture, which accounts for almost half of Ethiopia?s economic activity and a great deal of its recent success, is actually being driven by an out of control ?land grab?, as multinational companies and private speculators vie to lease millions of acres of the country?s most fertile territory from the government at bargain basement prices..."
Source/publisher: Al Jazeera (People and Power)
2014-01-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-09-03
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
more
Description: "Set against the backdrop of escalating food prices and worsening food insecurity, the issue of land becomes more relevant and urgent. The facts and figures speak of a great irony. More than half a billion people in Asia suffer from hunger and food insecurity, and too often these are the small food producers, who comprise farm laborers, tenants and small farmers. The region is home to 75% of the world?s farming households, 80% of which are resource-poor, and lack access to productive land. Farmers? and rural food producers? lives are closely bound up with their lands, which are their source of food and livelihood as well as their best chance of escaping poverty. For indigenous peoples (IPs), securing recognition of their customary rights to ancestral lands is indispensable to their right to self-determination, cultural integrity and identity. Unfortunately, these and other groups that till the land and depend on it for their survival have least access to it. Across many countries, improving access to land is key to solving many social problems, including rural unemployment, poverty, food insecurity, rural-urban migration, and political stability. Increasingly, the land access issue has been seen as a major reason behind armed conflict, domestic violence, corruption, internal displacement, structural violence and other social ills...... The Prolonged Struggle for Land Rights in Asia - A Regional Overview... Land Watch Asia Campaign Declaration.....Country Papers:- Bangladesh: The Backpedalling Stops... Cambodia: Overcoming a Failure of Law and Political Will ... India Riding the Crest of People?s Movements ...1 Indonesia The Persistence of Popular Will ... Nepal Asserting Freedom from Central Control ... Pakistan Fighting the Pyramid of Power ... Philippines Defending the Gains of Tenurial Reform ... Sri Lanka Land Ownership and the Journey to Self-Determination ..... Keywords: Asia Land Tenure Security Land Management Overview
Source/publisher: ANGOC (Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development
2012-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-06-05
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.3 MB
more
Description: "... In December 2015, representatives of governments, civil society organizations, Indigenous Peoples? groups, and the private sector met in Paris for the 21st Conference of Parties (COP 21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The aim of this meeting was to determine a global path forward that would limit the rise in global temperature to no more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels and allow countries to reach peak greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible. With its recognition of the crucial role that forests play in achieving targeted emissions reductions, the Paris Agreement marks a major turning point in the global struggle to combat climate change. Yet, the final Agreement lacks key considerations for the Indigenous Peoples and local communities (IP/LCs) who have customary rights to a large portion of the world?s remaining tropical forests, as well as millions of hectares of degraded forests that could capture additional carbon through restoration. Although Indigenous Peoples and civil society groups from around the world advocated throughout the negotiation process that clear provisions securing IP/LC land tenure would be essential components of any successful and equitable climate agreement, text on the rights of IP/LCs was limited to the preamble. Ultimately, the Paris Agreement failed to take into account the significance of community land rights and community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) for realizing its ambitious goals. This brief presents a review of 161 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) submitted on behalf of 188 countries for COP 21 to determine the extent to which Parties made clear commitments to strengthen or expand the tenure and natural resource management rights of IP/LCs as part of their climate change mitigation plans or associated adaptation actions. Of the 161 INDCs submitted, 131 are from countries with tropical and subtropical forests..."
Source/publisher: Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI)
2016-04-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 749.14 KB
more
Description: Abstract: "This paper discusses Cambodia?s legal framework relating to Economic Land Concessions (ELCs) and looks at the implementation gaps. It argues that despite Cambodian?s legal framework governing land and ELCs being welldeveloped, its social benefits, such as protecting the rights of the poor and vulnerable an contributing to transparency and accountability, are almost non existent. Recent evidence suggests that the Government?s handling of natural resources is a far cry from its official land policy which is ?to administer, manage, use and distribute land in an equitable, transparent, efficient, and sustainable manner”. This paper argues that this is due to (1) a large gap between the country?s legal framework and the implementation of the country?s land concession policies and (2) a complete disregard of the country?s customary land rights. Widespread corruption and nepotism encourages growing inequality in land ownership and a significant power imbalance between small groups of powerful, politically and economically well-connected elites and poor and vulnerable people in Cambodia. This is exacerbated by the lack of implementation of appropriate regulations. This elite exercises control over the judiciary and has created a climate of impunity, thus hindering the overall implementation of the legal framework and serving their own interests. The paper further looks into recent Government actions such as the moratorium on ELCs and a new land titling initiative to re-allocate ELC area and forestland to the rural poor and assesses whether these actions have the potential to reverse or perpetuate the current inequality in land holdings."
Creator/author: Christoph Oldenburg, Andreas Neef
Source/publisher: The Law and Development Review; 7(1): 49?77
2014-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 1.41 MB 3.17 MB
more
Description: "This chapter aims to overcome the gap existing between case study research, which typically provides qualitative and process based insights, and national or global inventories that typically offer spatially explicit and quantitative analysis of broader patterns, and thus to present adequate evidence for policymaking regarding largescale land acquisitions. Therefore, the chapter links spatial patterns of land acquisitions to underlying implementation processes of land allocation. Methodologically linking the described patterns and processes proved difficult, but we have identified indicators that could be added to inventories and monitoring systems to make linkage possible. Combining complementary approaches in this way may help to determine where policy space exists for more sustainable governance of land acquisitions, both geographically and with regard to processes of agrarian transitions. Our spatial analysis revealed two general patterns: (i) relatively large forestry related acquisitions that target forested landscapes and often interfere with semisubsistence farming systems; and (ii) smaller agriculture related acquisitions that often target existing cropland and also interfere with semi subsistence systems. Furthermore, our meta analysis of land acquisition implementation processes shows that authoritarian, topdown processes dominate. Initially, the demands of powerful regional and domestic investors tend to override socioecological variables, local actors? interests, and land governance mechanisms. As available land grows scarce, however, and local actors gain experience dealing with land acquisitions, it appears that land investments begin to fail or give way to more inclusive, bottomup investment models."
Creator/author: Peter Messerli, Amaury Peeters, Oliver Schoenweger, Vong Nanhthavong, Andreas Heinimann
Source/publisher: The Graduate Institude, Geneva
2015-00-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English and French
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 940.01 KB 2.46 MB
more
Description: Abstract: "Land-grabbing is occurring at a significant extent and pace in Southeast Asia; some of the characteristics of this land grab differ from those in regions such as Africa. At a glance, Europe is not a high profile, major driver of land-grabbing in this region, but a closer examination reveals that it nonetheless is playing a significant role. This influence is both direct and indirect, through European corporate sector and public policies, as well as through multilateral agencies within which EU states are members. Looking at some of the cases of large-scale land acquisition in Southeast Asia, and the role played by the European Union, we put forward several observations and issues for discussion."
Creator/author: Santurnino M. Borras Jr., Jennifer C. Franco
Source/publisher: Transitional Institute (TNI)
2011-01-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-03-24
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 421.32 KB
more
Description: Abstract: "Large-scale land acquisition are not new in the Mekong region but have been encouraged and have gathered momentum since the end of the 90s, particularly Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. These acquisitions are realized by national and foreign companies from the region, particularly China, Vietnam, and Thailand in a movement strongly associated with economic globalization and neo-liberal policies which promote free flow of capital at the regional and global level and the adaptation of national spaces to the requirement of liberal and global markets (Peemans, 2013). It is striking to see how Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, with different political regimes and histories, have shifted radically from a model based on land ownership by the State? with a relatively egalitarian land access by family farmers, to a model encouraging long term land leases that favor the emergence of large capitalist private and corporate owners and the abandon of land national sovereignty principles, sensu Borras and Franco (2012). In fact, the present policies favoring large scale concessions (largely at the expense of small holders and of indigenous peoples / ethnic minorities) can be considered as a ?counter agrarian reform”, the opposite of land reform policies promoted by both socialist countries and by the USA (Alliance for Peace) in the 60s, although with very different modalities and objectives. Although different factors can explain these policy shifts, in particular widespread corruption and patrimonial practices of the political elites, on the one hand and geo-strategy and political influence of regional powers on the other hand, this paper argues that this model of agricultural modernization through FDI and large scale land acquisition is being promoted through the convergence of actors such as the international agro-industrial complex, International Financial institutions (IFI), some bi-lateral donor or government state owned funds/enterprises. The claims of this model, largely shared by the region?s middle class and intellectuals, can be outlined as follows: 1) an inflow of FDI ? Foreign Direct Investment - is essential for economic development; 2) large-scale agriculture is more efficient than family farming in terms of economic development; 3) privatizing land facilitates investments and therefore increases land and labor productivity; 4) subsistence peasant and ethnic minority farmers are structurally incapable of agricultural development progress and would be better off if they become wage workers; and 5) the growing ?modern economy? will naturally absorb the work force coming out of agriculture and that of general population growth. All these assertions can be challenged to various degrees, both form a theoretical and empirical point of view. Available evidence indicates that economic benefits have not accrued at the level expected ? either to family farmers or to the state treasuries ? as cash benefits have been ?privatized? by domestic power elites hidden behind nontransparent one-party states, but also because many investments have produced disappointing results. The increase in number of landless farmers and rising number of land conflicts poses a serious challenge to the legitimacy and stability of the concerned states. However, although numerous case studies can be found, the aggregated information available on the impacts of large-scale agricultural investments is scarce. This paper will conclude by proposing as a strategy aiming to challenge the dominant ?paradigm? of agricultural modernization based on large scale agriculture and FDI, by research-based initiatives and policy dialogue at the regional level, as a way to improve land policies in favor of family farmers and ethnic minorities.".....
Creator/author: Christian Castellanet, Jean‐Christophe Diepart
Source/publisher: RCSD Chiang Mai University, Transnational Institute etc.
2015-05-05
Date of entry/update: 2016-01-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 271.2 KB
more
Description: "This report presents a political-economic analysis of land governance at the regional level, focusing on the Mekong Region The primary emphasis is on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV), but the paper also takes into account the regional role and land governance experiences of Thailand and China. The report is one in a series of reports on Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam that present country-level analyses of the poli- tical economy of land governance. The series is part of a research mapping and political-economic analysis conducted by the authors for the Mekong Region Land Governance (MRLG) project, funded by the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation (SDC) and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). The initiative is driven by concerns about security of tenure of small- holder farmers, ethnic minorities and women, against a background of land grabbing in various guises (see www.mrlg.org)... In this case, the Mekong is broadly coterminous with mainland Southeast Asia. While it takes the river as its defining motif, the region is much wider than the Mekong River and its tributaries. Alternatively framed, the Greater Mekong Sub-region is comprised of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the two provinces of China that border Southeast Asia (Yunnan and Guangxi). The project-specific definition of the region behind this report includes the CLMV countries. Sometimes referred to as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) latecomers, the once-socialist economies seek to integrate and capitalise their economies. In the context of land-based investment with which the report is concerned, Thailand and China enter as important players ? providing a more complete picture of the region. 2 Political Economy of Land Governance in the Mekong Region A Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) report defines ?land governance” succinctly as follows: ?Land governance concerns the rules, processes and structures through which decisions are made about access to land and its use, the manner in which the decisions are implemented and enforced, the way that competing interests in land are managed” (Palmer et al. 2009: 9).” Our working definition expands on the FAO definition as follows: ?Land governance consists of the means by which authority is wielded and collective action applied in order to achieve particular social and economic out- comes through land use, distribution, access and security. Land governance is concerned with processes, institutions, laws, practices and structures of power involving a diverse range of public and private actors.” Land governance is a scaled issue, involving broad level influences at the global, regional, national and local scales. This paper seeks to explain the main parameters of land governance at the regional scale, with a particular focus on the Mekong Region. Our project of conducting a regional political-economic analysis considers the questions: Why apply political economy to an analysis of land governance, and what does a regional scale analysis entail? In other words, what makes land govern- ance a political-economic issue, and what makes it a regional issue? LAND GOVERNANCE: A POLITICAL- ECONOMIC ISSUE Not all approaches to land governance place it in the realm of political economy per se. Land governance can be approached from a number of angles. In a uni- versal and normative sense ?good land governance” is sought through a range of global level assessment criteria (see, for example, The Land Governance Assessment Framework: Identifying and Monitoring Good Practice in the Land Sector, Deininger et al. 2011). The FAO has established a set of non-binding guidelines for ?responsible” governance of land tenure and other natural resources (FAO 2012). A number of development assistance initiatives funded by Australian, German, Finnish, Canadian, Swiss (and other) bilateral development agencies have sought to improve land governance in the Mekong Region by programmatic means (see www.landgov.donorplatform.org). Each of these frameworks has its own emphasis; some are more market-oriented and some are geared to a liberal rights-oriented approach of social inclusion. However, all work within broad ?good governance” criteria of transparency, rule of law, stakeholder inclusion and equitable market structures. While there is recognition of the need to adapt global concepts and criteria of ?good governance? to country circumstances, the political- economic embeddedness of land issues has often been overlooked. Only recently have some donors specifically sought to conduct political-economic analysis in recognition of program risks and failures attributed to insufficient account being taken of the context within which programs operate. For example, responding to the World Bank Inspection Panel that investigated the Land Management and Administration Project in Cambodia, Management of LMAP noted: ?With the benefit of hindsight, Management recognises that ... a more detailed analysis of the political economy context would likely have identified ... that... numerous actors had strong incentives not to proceed with a trans- parent and public interest based classification and registration of State land” (IBRD & IDA, 21 January, 2011, p. 15..."
Creator/author: Philip Hirsch, Natalia Scurrah
Source/publisher: Mekong Region Land Governence (MRLG)
2015-11-00
Date of entry/update: 2016-01-17
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 602.11 KB
more