Librarian's Choice

အဓိကအကြောင်းအရာ

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Title: Preparing for Myamar?s Environment-Friendly Reform
Description/subject: "... Myanmar is a predominantly agricultural country in Mekong River Basin, also known as Burma, the second largest country in mainland South-East Asia, known as the ??Asia?s Barn?? in the past years, once the world?s largest exporter of rice. Myanmar is a resource-rich country that has abundant arable land, timber, mineral resources, natural gas and oil, which made it one of the best developing countries in South-East Asia until the early 1960s. Myanmar?s total area is 676 578 km2. Forest area is 317 730 km2, 48.32% of land area; other wooded land accounts for 30.59% of land area; other land accounts for 21.09% of land area, and inland water area is 19 030 km2 (FAO, 2010). Extensive changes in altitude and latitude produced a seemingly unparalleled abundance of habitats and species. Myanmar occupied completely or partially nine of the Global 200 Eco-regions (Olson and Dinerstein, 2002). Indo-Burma includes most of Myanmar is described as one of the eight hottest biodiversity hotspots (Myers et al., 2000). There is no doubt that Myanmar has an unmatched level of biological diversity. Myanmar has 7000 plant species, has 1027 known bird species, 4 of which are endemic, and 19 others are restricted range birds. Myanmar is also home to 300 known species of mammals, 425 reptile and amphibian species, and 350 freshwater fish, especially the endangered species such as the one-horned rhinoceros, the Irrawaddy Dolphin and the Gurney?s Pitta (BEWG, 2011)..."
Changjian Wang, Fei Wang, Qiang Wang, Degang Yang, Lianrong Li, Xinlin Zhang
Source/publisher: Chinese Academy of Sciences
Date of publication: 2012-11-09
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 233.71 KB
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Title: Advocating for Sustainable Development in Burma (Kachin)
Description/subject: Ndai gaw uhpung uhpawng ni hte tinghkrai hku nna myen mung Kata n amazing bawng ring lam a matu sut nhprang laika rai nga ai. Ndai sut nhprang laika gaw, matut manoi kyem mazing bawng ring masa a shiga hte dai mazing bawng ring lam galaw sa wa yang myen mungdan a ap nawng ai hte lit la ai shiga hpe jaw nga ai. Madi shadaw kyem mazing bawng ring masa gaw makau grup yin hpe n jahten shaza ai (sh) mungdan a shingra nhprang sut rai hpe n jahten ai bawngring lam rai nna grau jahten shaza hkrum ai shinggyim uhpawng ni mada? shawa masha ni hta ra ai lam ni hpe jahkum shatsup ya nga ai. Kawn” mazing bawng ring lam gaw shingra mungkan hte shinggyim masha ni a asak hkrung lam hta na nsam maka law law hte matut mahkai nga ai. Ndai nsam maka kumla ni hta lawm ai gaw sakhkrung hpan hkum (grup yin nga ai arai amyu baw hkum sumhpa), lamu ga (ja maw, sut nhprang maw ni lawm ai), nam maling hkai sun, hka tsam n-gun hte sut masa ni rai nga ma ai.
Source/publisher: Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG)
Date of publication: 2011-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Kachin
Format : pdf
Size: 869.11 KB
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Title: Advocating for Sustainable Development in Burma (Shan)
Description/subject: "... This is a resource for organisations and individuals advocating about sustainable development issues in Burma. This resource provides information about the concept of sustainable development and about the government of Burma?s commitments and responsibilities when it comes to sustainable development. Sustainable development is development that does not damage the environment or the country?s natural resources, and that meets people?s needs, including the needs of the most vulnerable communities. Sustainable development relates to many aspects of the natural world and of people?s lives. These aspects include: biodiversity (variety in the natural environment), land (including mining), forests, agriculture, water, energy, and the economy..."
Source/publisher: Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG)
Date of publication: 2011-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Shan
Format : pdf
Size: 1.28 MB
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Title: Advocating for Sustainable Development in Burma (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Description/subject: ဤနိုးဆော်မှုများသည် မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ၏ ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲသော ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကဏ္ဍများတွင်ပါဝင်မည့် အဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၊ တသီးပုဂ္ဂလများအတွက် အချက်အလက်ရင်းမြစ်များပင် ဖြစ်သည်။ ဤအချက်အလက် ရင်းမြစ်များသည် ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲသောဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးအယူအဆ၊ မြန်မာ အစိုးရ၏ တာဝန်ဝတ္တရားများနှင့် ဆောင်ရွက်ရန်ရှိသည့်အချက်အလက်များကိုဖော်ပြသည်။ ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲသောဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးသည် နိုင်ငံ၏သဘာဝသယံဇာတအရင်းအမြစ်နှင့် ပတ်ဝန်းကျင်ကို ထိခိုက်ပျက်စီးစေမှု မရှိဘဲ လူသားတို့၏လိုအပ်ချက်၊ အထူးသဖြင့် အမှန်တကယ်အကာအကွယ့်မဲ့ဒုက္ခရောက်လျက်ရှိသော လူမှုအဖွဲ့အစည်းများ၏ လိုအပ်ချက်ကို တိုက်ရိုက်အကျိုးသက်ရောက်စေမည့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ဖြစ်သည်။ ရေရှည်တည်တံ့ခိုင်မြဲသော ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေးသည် သဘာဝကမ္ဘာမြေကြီး နှင့် လူနေထိုင်မှုဘဝတို့ကို ကဏ္ဍပေါင်းစုံဖြင့် ဆက်စပ်လျက်ရှိသည်။ ကဏ္ဍပေါင်းစုံဟုဆိုရာတွင် ဇီဝမျိုးကွဲများ (သဘာဝပတ်ဝန်းကျင်အတွင်း ကွဲပြားမှုအမျိုးမျိုး)၊ မြေယာ (သတ္တုတွင်းတူးဖော်ခြင်း အပါအဝင်)၊ သစ်တောများ၊ စိုက်ပျိုးရေး၊ ရေ၊ စွမ်းအင်နှင့် စီးပွားရေးတို့ဖြစ်သည်။...
Source/publisher: Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG)
Date of publication: 2011-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 5.57 MB
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Title: Advocating for Sustainable Development in Burma (English)
Description/subject: "... This is a resource for organisations and individuals advocating about sustainable development issues in Burma. This resource provides information about the concept of sustainable development and about the government of Burma?s commitments and responsibilities when it comes to sustainable development. Sustainable development is development that does not damage the environment or the country?s natural resources, and that meets people?s needs, including the needs of the most vulnerable communities. Sustainable development relates to many aspects of the natural world and of people?s lives. These aspects include: biodiversity (variety in the natural environment), land (including mining), forests, agriculture, water, energy, and the economy..."
Source/publisher: Burma Environmental Working Group (BEWG)
Date of publication: 2011-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.71 MB
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Title: Development of Environmental Management Mechanism in Myanmar
Description/subject: "... Officials of Myanmar recognize that with a certain development in the country, deforestation, water pollution and other adverse environmental conditions may have occurred, though off the record, from various economic and industrial sectors. Like elsewhere in the world, the demands of a growing population and a market-oriented economy have altered consumption patterns and infringed on natural resources. In the effort to keep a balance between development and environment, Myanmar has made efforts and will have to sustain them to protect the environment. Whatever the awareness and commitment, the efforts may not be perfect in achieving this comprehensive task; there is strength and so are the weaknesses. This paper is to track down the success in this aspect and identify the challenges that may be awaiting..."
Myo Nyunt
Source/publisher: Yangon Technical University
Date of publication: 2008-06-17
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 159.99 KB
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Title: Community Forestry in Cease-Fire Zones in Kachin State, Northern Burma: Formalizing Collective Property in Contested Ethnic Areas
Description/subject: "... Community forests (CF) in northern Burma, particularly in Kachin State, have been sprouting up in villages since the mid-2000s, spearheaded by national NGOs. The recent watershed of CF establishment follows several contingent foundational factors: greater political stability and government control in cease-fire zones; enhanced NGO capacity, access, and effectiveness in these areas; and most prominently the recent threat of agribusiness. This paper will critically examine (inter-)national NGO‟s assistance to rural farmers in formalizing collective forestland in cease-fire zones as a resistance strategy to land dispossession from military/state-backed agribusiness concessions. My overall argument is that while CF represents a legally-sanctioned, bottom-up resistance against land dispossession ? a rare phenomenon in a country such as Burma ? an unintended consequence is producing forms of contested state authority and power in cease-fire zones. For instances of post-war zones with continued contentious ethnic politics and contested state authority, as is the case in northern Burma, rebuilding state-society resource relations and institutions present new political and resource use and access challenges. Data presented here is part of a broader research agenda conducted since the early-2000s on resource politics in northern Burma, with qualitative analysis for this paper based upon interviews with CF user groups, participant observation at CF workshops, interviews with Burmese NGOs, and secondary materials. This research project is a work-in-progress, and all errors are of course of my own unintentional making. CF represents a refashioned collective property regime. This novel land management strategy does not represent any sort of customary arrangement; in fact Kachin are upland swidden farmers, not strictly forest-dwelling communities. This scenario then causes conflict in that the CF joint- management plans mirror state land classification schemes that firmly delineate between „forest. and „agriculture. land uses, unlike traditional land management (much like for other rural communities) that does not clearly separate forest from agriculture. CF falls under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Forestry (MoF), which enables the increasingly weak MoF to stake an institutional claim against the increasingly powerful Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation (MoAI). In addition to symbolizing emerging state institutional struggles in cease-fire zones, newly established CF are also altering local resource use and access by villagers planting state-favored, high-value timber trees, such as infamous Burmese teak, in former swiddens ? an act that uncomfortably brings colonial-dictated resource use practices into the present. Furthermore, only CF user groups can access forest products, with outsiders (non-CF members, even within the village) formally blocked from access, including for shifting cultivation. By farmers and NGOs attempting to block the expansion of large-scale agricultural plantations, they instead cultivate state authority and institutions, in this case the Forestry Department, state-recognized land management categories, and new state-governed farmers. This case study highlights the importance of seriously considering how development interventions cultivate new forms of authority and power ?perceived as both legitimate and illegitimate by different actors ? in post-war zones when devising collective action strategies. These same interventions also inculcate new environmental practices in farmers, shaping them into NGO-state subjects that contrast with their customary practices. In this case, NGOs assisting farmers in establishing state-authorized collective property in the form of CF does not respect customary land use, facilitates bringing in a villager-perceived illegitimate state, and is increasing food insecurity. The positives though ? which may or may not outweigh the negatives ? include stemming the tide of land dispossession by private companies and providing a potential platform for political mobilizing at the village level. An alternative strategy could be to push for legal recognition of customary land management, such as upland swidden cultivation, could potentially block rubber expansion while concomitantly strengthening food security, customary land use regimes, and traditional village power bases to challenge state centralization in these politically contested cease-fire ethnic areas..."
Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: CAPRi
Date of publication: 2010-07-01
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-21
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 397.57 KB
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Title: "RiA" (Root Investigative Agency)
Description/subject: Root Investigative Agency (RiA) is a registered news agency of Sittwe, Arakan State, in Burma (Myanmar). RIA reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, political corruption, or corporate wrongdoing focused in the Western Myanmar in Burmese language. the RiA aims to not only produce investigative projects but also provide a place for the listeners, viewers and readers to discuss the stories, submit ideas for investigative reports, and peruse the produced data. ရခိုင်မြောက်ပိုင်းသတင်း၊ ရခိုင်တောင်ပိုင်းသတင်း၊အသွင်အပြင်၊အမြင်၊မြန်မာဆက်ဆံရေး၊စီးပွားရေး၊လူမူရေး၊နိုင်ငံရေး၊ဗွီဒီယို၊မေးမြန်းခန်း၊ နိုင်ငံတကာ။
Source/publisher: "RiA"
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Local URL:
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Title: Facilitating Decentralized Policy for Sustainable Forest Governance in Myanmar: Lessons from the Philippines
Description/subject: "... In Myanmar, people?s participation has been prioritized as an imperative of national forest policy in 1995 endorsed by the community forestry instructions (DFIs). Today, there are about 42,148 ha of community forestry (CF) management by 572 user groups (USGs). In CF management, the people are engaging three types of activities: (1) to preserve of improve the production system such as planting trees and promoting the growth of trees, (2) to use forest resources for subsistence needs, (3) to get cash by selling the timber harvested or furniture made by the timber. Initial participation by the people and their continuation of CF activities are considered to be indispensable for sustainable forest management. In practice, however, the improvement of forest management and protection are often threatened because of difficulties in continuing the activities even though initial participation was achieved. Providing secure property rights is among the major factors that contribute to continuing CF activities. Thus the objectives of the dissertation are (1) to find out the factors affecting initial participation of USG members in management actitities in Myanmar, (2) to assess the role of property rights in sustaining CF activities in the Philippines, and (3) to draw implications for Myanmar policy in terms of property rights issues from the case of the Philippines..."
Ei Ei Swe Hlaing
Source/publisher: University of Tokyo
Date of publication: 2009-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.36 MB
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Title: Lessons Learned from Civil Society Efforts to Promote Community (Forest) Resource Rights and other Rights in Voluntary Partnership Agreements
Description/subject: "... The 2003 European Union (EU) Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) Action Plan represents an attempt to link forest governance reforms in timber producing countries with market incentives for legally produced timber. Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) are bilateral trade agreements signed between the EU and a timber producing country, and are a key element of the FLEGT Action Plan. Each VPA has been drafted to reflect the realities and priorities of the producer country, and the negotiation process for each agreement has directly involved national civil society representatives, often for the first time in the forest sector. Civil society in VPA countries and internationally have sought to use the VPA negotiation process to advance community resource rights and other rights. The main objective of this paper is to examine the experiences and efforts of civil society in promoting a rights-based agenda through their engagement in VPA negotiations. It draws on experiences from the six countries that have completed negotiations: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Ghana, Indonesia, Liberia and Republic of Congo. In most cases it is too early to see tangible ?on the ground? evidence as regards stronger community resource rights. It will only be possible to assess the effects when the VPA and its Legality Assurance System (LAS) are being fully implemented and FLEGT licences are issued. Positive effects will also depend on strong implementation of the EU Timber Regulation since this provides the basic market incentive for reform by producer country governments. However, according to the responses received from civil society key informants in VPA countries it is possible to identify considerable progress as regards procedural rights: • It was found that all the VPA processes examined have resulted in significant advances for transparency, especially around concession allocation, logging operations, forest fees and other sensitive information. Transparency in terms of process also improved during VPA negotiations, with civil society organisations (CSOs) gaining insights into, and influence over, policy processes, including legal reform, usually for the first time in the forest sector. • CSOs in most countries regard the VPA process as having been very important for getting customary and other rights onto the agenda, and/or for expanding the political space available to promote rights. This is why procedural rights are fundamental and a pre-condition for progress on substantive rights. VPA negotiations have provided an entry point or platform for raising politically contested rights issues, with some CSOs identifying a small but noticeable shift in government (or forest department) attitudes to community rights. • In four of the countries a formal role for civil society in independent monitoring of VPA implementation has been established. This has been regarded as a major achievement by civil society since the potential for on the ground realisation of rights negotiated in a VPA is strongly related to how well its implementation is monitored - this puts pressure on loggers to respect community rights, and on governments to promote compliance by the private sector. • In some cases the VPA has endorsed legislation with significant rights implications, for example, in Ghana and Central African Republic (CAR). These laws would have little hope of being operationalised without the need to comply with a VPA legality assurance system. • In all VPA processes the review of forest legislation has highlighted gaps or inconsistencies, for instance nonexistent or weak implementing measures for essential laws, conflicting laws, or a failure to recognize customary rights in statutory law. VPA processes have helped clarify the rights status of communities in and around forests, a key first step towards improving them. • VPA processes have also been useful as a conduit for capacity building of CSOs, for example in undertaking independent monitoring activities. According to questionnaire responses, civil society key informants in most VPA countries felt that their capacity to defend community rights has been strengthened as a result of their participation in the VPA process. • There are also early signs that governments that have signed VPAs are more sensitive about forest governance and rights issues because of concerns about their reputation in the eyes of European importers. CSO advocacy campaigns will be able to exploit this sensitivity. On the other hand it must be acknowledged that in terms of promotion of tenure or community resource rights, the VPA process has its limitations. Most energy in the VPA implementation phase has gone into the technicalities of setting up the LAS, with much less attention paid to the rights-based agenda. In general, the VPA mainly affects rights linked to commercial timber production and trade, although some of the legal reforms mandated by VPAs include reforms to core statutory documents such as the Forest Code. There is also a requirement in VPAs that relevant national legislation is adjusted to incorporate international law, which should result in increased recognition of customary rights. It is also recognised that there are major challenges to implementation, primarily the political will required to implement reforms that will impact on the political economy status quo. In some cases there has been a hiatus following successful negotiation of a VPA - civil society actors have sometimes lost their focus, and the state has taken the opportunity to retrench as regards vested interests and pre-VPA attitudes. In sum, the main advances have been in terms of procedural rights - transparency, participation, consultation, monitoring and FPIC ? rather than substantive rights. On the other hand these advances in procedural rights can be seen as being very significant in most of the countries, where, prior to the VPA process, civil society had very weak procedural rights. It can be argued that stronger procedural rights are a pre-condition for progress on substantive rights. Civil society can also see that by being linked to a legal instrument like the LAS there is at least a hope that for the first time advances on paper as regards community resource and other rights can be transmitted to practice. The main conclusion of this paper is therefore that, for the countries examined, the prospects for community resource rights (and other rights) are more hopeful than if there had been no VPA process. As pointed out by a Ghanaian civil society informant ?it is safe to conclude that without the VPA, farmers and forest communities will be worse off. The legally binding framework of the permits regime, access to information and reform agenda when complimented with proper implementation and monitoring by all stakeholders will increase community rights.”...
Lindsay Duffield, Michael Richards
Source/publisher: Forest Trends
Date of publication: 2013-10-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.78 MB
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Title: Market Research and Enterprise Development for Community Forestry in Myanmar
Description/subject: "... Pyoe Pin is a programme aimed at strengthening civil society in Myanmar. The programme is supported by DFID, the British Department for International Cooperation and implemented through the British council in partnership with local NGOs. Community Forestry (CF) is a key element of the programme, as it is seen as pathway to increasing the participation of civil society in influencing policy and practice with regards to communities. access and sustainable use of forestry land. CF can also improve forestry conservation and enhance the livelihoods of communities. CF has been a national development tool since 1995, when the Ministry of Forestry issued instructions for the issuing of Community Forest certificates. In Kachin state in northern Myanmar bordering China, Pyoe Pin has been working with two local NGOs (ECODEV and Shalom Foundation), who are in turn engaging with forest villages, to increase their awareness of appropriate forest usage and management, through assisting these communities to apply for community forest certificates. These certificates provide community rights to forest products and tenure for 30 years. Working through 120 villages, 54 Forest User Groups (FUGs) consisting of about 40,000 people have been created, who are replanting degraded forest areas, and also balancing their livelihood needs with greater understanding of sustainability. So far, 31,445 acres have been prepared for CF, but aside from 3000 of these acres, the rest has not yet been granted the lease, largely a result of lack of institutional support for this process as government prioritizes commercial allocations of land over community allocations for CF. As yet, CF has not shown significant direct economic impacts, but it is hoped that income from forest products, produced by and for the communities engaged, will have an impact on the incomes of the communities and households involved. One of the challenges has been how to increase the commercial viability and impact of CF by bringing greater alignment between commercial and community priorities. Some parts of the CF Instruction have hindered the maximization of economic benefits that can be gained by CF as they limit community rights to harvesting and selling at minimal levels. In addition, both private sector and Government have not considered CF as a potential partner for sourcing raw materials. But the environment is ripe for undertaking analysis and piloting of alternative models. There is a new Minister of Forestry, formerly head of Myanmar Timber Enterprise, who has experience in extensive forest-based commercial ventures. In addition, a recent national CF workshop was the first of the kind to bring experts from around the region to discuss findings from a national-level appraisal of CF in Myanmar since inception 15 years ago. In this context, Pyoe Pin envisages to develop a pilot project that will seek to demonstrate: 1. the value of CF as a real national development tool for the poorest communities, and to increase institutional support for its realization. 2. CF can be a commercially viable business partner for private sector 3. that it is important that communities who apply for CF status should be supported with the expedient granting of leases 4. that CF Instructions need to be revised to allow communities to commercialize their CF Towards these objectives, Pyoe Pin started to identify CF products that could have the greatest market potential and feasibility of being taken up by community forestry, which can then supply the products to larger domestic and possibly even international markets. An initial brainstorming session with foresters from NGOs and research institutes and businessmen from the Timber Market Association in December 2010 identified a preliminary shortlist of forest products. This selection was mainly based on secondary sources of information on market potential to help narrow down a more appropriate list for additional value-chain analysis..."
Foppes, J., Moe Aung, Paing Soe
Source/publisher: Pyoe Pin
Date of publication: 2011-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.26 MB
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Title: Rapid Assessment of Options for Independent Sustainability Certification for Community Forestry in Myanmar
Description/subject: "... We here examine several options for independent certification of community forests with a view to legal timber harvest. A number of certification standards and types have been developed world-wide, with the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC; www.pefc.org) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC; info.fsc.org) being the most widely recognised standards for Sustainable Forest Management (SFM) and Chain of Custody (CoC) certification. This report considers the suitability of both systems in the context of nationally recognised community forest management in Myanmar, through the conduct of a rapid field assessment of the constraints and opportunities in two forest user group networks in Tanintharyi region and Kachin State. Certification concepts and our initial findings were presented in a roundtable meeting in Yangon in August hosted jointly with EcoDev and the Myanmar Timber Merchants Association, and attended by RECOFTC, Myanmar Forest Certification Committee, IUCN and other stakeholders. The presentations are reproduced in Annex 1 and 2. Our rapid field evaluation shows that, in the case study sites, an external review by an accredited timber certifier ? either Forest Stewardship Council or the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification ? would currently cost more than the benefits it will bring to the to smallholders. The main constraints are that; a) managed areas are currently too small (
Bjoern Wode, Robert Oberndorf, Mark E Grindley
Source/publisher: Myanmar Conservation and Development Program (MCDP)
Date of publication: 2014-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 8.83 MB
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Title: Silvicultural, Inventory and Harvest Guidelines for Community Managed Forests: Some Recommendations for Discussion
Description/subject: ..."This Working Paper examines options for improved sustainability and economic viability for community forest in Myanmar (See also Wode et al 2014). It was prepared under an EU-FAO Regional FLEGT Programme project implemented by Fauna & Flora International that is exploring opportunities and constraints for commercial timber production from community forests. The paper is written in the form of a draft ?Guide for Forest Management? that could be applied by Forest User Groups who have been handed over natural forest resources for sustainable long-term management and protection under a Community Forest (CF) certificate and with a CF management plan available. It is not a substitute for government regulations or departmental guidance, and is intended to promote discussion on sustainable forest management in the context of legal CF in Myanmar"...
Bjoern Wode
Source/publisher: Myanmar Conservation and Development Program (MCDP)
Date of publication: 2014-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.53 MB
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Title: The History of Taungya Plantation Forestry and Its Rise and Fall in the Tharrawaddy Forest Division of Myanmar (1869-1994)
Description/subject: "... In some areas of Myanmar (formerly Burma), trees are planted amongst agricultural crops in hill-farms (taungya). This "taungya system" is one method of restoring tree cover and can also be regarded as a forerunner of agroforestry. The system is widely believed to have originated in the Tharrawaddy forest division of Myanmar, but the actual location of its origin is likely to be the Kaboung forest area. The taungya system was first devised by Dr. DIETRICH BRANDIS, an early German botanist-turned-forester in Myanmar, in the mid 1800s after he observed the taungya of the Karen hill people. Taungya teak plantations expanded in the Tharrawaddy forest division from 1869 as teak grows well there and the facilities for teak timber extraction are good. However, the annual establishment rate in Tharrawaddy has fluctuated greatly. The establishment of taungya plantations has gone through three periods of growth and decline. The growth phase of the first period began in 1869 when Imperial foresters succeeded in employing the hill Karen to plant teak in their taungyas, and was followed by a decline from 1906 when the scattered taungya plantation became difficult to manage. The second period began from 1918-19 when concentrated regeneration under the Uniform System was introduced into the division. This period?s decline started in 1930 and was caused by the farmers? revolution. The third period began in 1948, but the thirty years to 1979 were politically and socially unstable, so there was very little planting throughout this time. The growth in plantation establishment began in early 1980 when the government focused on reforestation to boost timber production, but it decline came in the late 1980s and was primarily caused by socioeconomic and government policy changes. Higher wages for taungya workers and more productive agricultural techniques for taungya crops are now necessary if taungya plantation management is to be successful in the future..."
San Win, Minoru Kumazaki
Source/publisher: Japan Society of Forest Planning
Date of publication: 1997-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-20
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.04 MB
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Title: "The Mon Forum" (Burmese) No. 4/2015 (August 2015) "မွန်လူထုအသံ" အတွဲ (၃)၊ အမှတ် (၄)၊ သြဂုတ်လ (၁၅) ၂၀၁၅ (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma (HURFOM)
Date of publication: 2015-08-15
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 774.46 KB
Local URL: PDF icon MF-2015-08-bu.pdf
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Title: Unleashing the potential of community forest enterprises in Myanmar
Description/subject: "... Unleashing the potential of community forest (CF) enterprise in Myanmar is crucial for two main reasons. First, it will increase local incomes and government revenues, which will reduce poverty. Second, the financial incentive of such enterprises will encourage local people to manage and restore forests. Without enlisting the help of rural communities in these efforts it is likely that forest loss will continue and the contribution of forests to the rural economy will continue to decline. The rate of forest loss in Myanmar is among the highest in the world, running at 0.9 per cent per year between 2000 and 2010. The forest sector?s importance to the overall economy has declined in this time, from 0.6 per cent in 2006-2007 to 0.38 per cent in 2010-2011. Myanmar?s overall economy is now beginning to grow but at least 26 per cent of the population remain in poverty ? mostly in rural areas. Turning this around will require the development of new economic opportunities in rural areas, of which community forest enterprises are a critical part. A number of immediate steps are needed to develop community forest enterprise opportunities. Forest legislation should allow communities commercial-use rights for both timber and non-timber forest products (NTFPs). Government and civil society should work together to raise community awareness of these commercial enterprise opportunities, and a market-led approach to community forestry be pursued. The handover of local forests to Forest User Groups (FUGs) should be streamlined and accelerated. A working group of government extension staff and civil society groups should share experiences and expand capacity-building for FUGs in business management. Organisation between community FUGs should be encouraged, through local associations and regional and national federations. A reliable investment environment should be assured to facilitate enterprise development. Field research from four states presented in this report highlights particularly promising community forestry enterprise opportunities. Bamboos appear to be the highest-priority product for enterprise development in the Ayeyarwady Delta, with timber (and potentially timber poles) and charcoal taking the second and third positions respectively. In the Mandalay Region, bamboo has the highest potential for enterprise development, with timber and value-added bamboos taking the second and the third positions respectively. In Shan State, thatch appears to have the highest potential, followed by value-added bamboos and bamboo. Finally, in Kachin State, timber appears to be the best option, with medicinal plants and firewood coming in at second and third. Overall ? and despite some significant regional differences ? our analysis points to three major sectors for CF enterprise development: timber (including poles and posts), bamboo (including both unprocessed and processed products) and NTFPs ? particularly medicinal and ornamental plants. There are also many miscellaneous products with great potential for CF enterprises, such as charcoal, rattan, agarwood, thanaka, elephant foot yam, white viii www.iied.org yam and so on. These can be integrated successfully as agricultural crops along with forest trees in the CF areas. This analysis clearly challenges the current monopoly on timber production by government agencies and ?crony? companies. Progress towards the government?s Forest Master Plan target of 918,000 hectares of community forestry by 2030 is drastically behind, in part because local communities do not perceive clearly the economic opportunity outlined. But even this target (2.8 per cent of the total forest area in Myanmar) is extraordinarily unambitious. A much more reasonable ambition might be a government target of allocating 25 per cent of the total area of Myanmar forest to communities ? matching roughly the global average for forest controlled by local groups. Doing this by 2030 could make six million people forest user group members, which would make community forestry a genuine engine of rural economic growth. We outline some of the forest products upon which such community forestry enterprises might be based, and recommend regional clustering to improve scale efficiencies and competitiveness. A number of key challenges were found to underpin the slow development of community forest enterprises. The report explores each and proposes a solution. There is weak political commitment to community forestry, and this requires more vigorous mobilisation and awareness-raising of its economic potential. Forest officers tend to lack interest in community forestry enterprise, when in fact it should be mainstreamed into the Forest Department?s normal operation procedures under a dedicated department. Tenure and use rights to commercial land and its resources are insecure, requiring the enactment and implementation of a national land-use policy and plan that grants community forest user groups (CFUGs) commercial forest use rights. The shortage of investment requires more accessible bank loans, membership saving schemes, supplier-buyer partnerships, insurance schemes and a further simplification of export requirements. A widespread lack of business skills among communities requires more extensive training, workshops and exchange visits. The lack of technology requires concerted research and development by government and academic institutions. Weak community participation in turn requires better mobilisation and awareness-raising of financial opportunities. Business and financial-support services will need to be strengthened to bring about this transformation. But the market-led approach to community forestry fits perfectly with the government of Myanmar?s new emphasis on support for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), spearheaded by the president. SMEs constitute the largest sector within Myanmar?s economy in terms of number, contribution to employment, output and investment ? playing a vital role in the country?s economic development. Community forestry enterprises could make a vital contribution to such development. But it will require concerted effort and a strong partnership between government and civil society groups to install a market-led approach to community forestry..."
Kyaw Tint, Oliver Springate-Baginski, Duncan Macqueen, Mehm Ko Ko Gyi
Date of publication: 2013-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.64 MB
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Title: Democratising Timber: An Assessment of Myanmar?s Emerging ?Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade? (FLEGT) Process
Description/subject: "... This paper attempts to analyse the key aspects of reforms required to ?democratise? Myanmar?s timber trade, and the political?economic interests contributing or obstructing reform. The main aim of this paper is to assess the prospects for reform of Myanmar?s timber sector in light of theemerging FLEGT process, and to apply a political ecological analysis to the ways in which the political?economic power balance will determine the outcomes. We use aspects of political?ecological analysis to understand the nature and dynamics of the contested reform process: firstly structural explanations for the ways in which different groups gain access to resources — in this case forests and timber, andwho gains and loses through these processes; and secondly, a critical analysis of how polices relate to the exercise of power and practices on the ground. (Springate-Baginski and Blaikie, 2007: 10). Methodologically, the often opaque and generally illicit nature of Myanmar?s present timber trade makes primary data collection extremely difficult, even hazardous. There is also limited government data, and what there is, is systematically misleading (EIA, 2014). Therefore for this overview paper we necessarily rely on secondary sources and anonymous interviews (conducted in Spring 2013), along with the personal experience of the authors. To help clarify the complex and fluid contemporary situation this first section sets out the overall political and historical context of Myanmar?s timber trade..."
Anthony Neil, Oliver Springate-Baginski, Aung Kyaw Thein, Win Myo Thu, Faith Doherty
Source/publisher: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)
Date of publication: 2014-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 643.41 KB
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Title: Constraints and Opportunities for Commercial Timber Extraction From Community and Smallholder Forests
Description/subject: "... The National Community Forestry Instruction (1995) provides communities the opportunity for 30 year licenses to manage state forests lands for natural forest protection, mixed agro-forestry and timber production systems. The Forestry Master Plan (2001) envisions around 920,000 ha to be handed to local Forest User Groups (FUGs) by 2030, about 1.36% of the total land area. A recent review of community forestry (CF) conducted in 2011 identified a range of constraints to allowing individual CFs to ?fulfil their potential”, and to scaling up the handover of CF to better meet the 2001 Forestry Master Plan targets. The review focused mostly on the institutional and technical impediments but also clearly identified the need for the scope of CF to shift from ?subsistence to enterprise” and integrate ?timber harvesting on a significantly larger scale”. Since 2008, FFI Myanmar and its partners have been actively supporting the establishment of CF as a tool for watershed protection, protected area buffer zone establishment and livelihood development. To date FFI has assisted over 50 communities with CF establishment, provided small grants and technical assistance to a further 30 CF groups, and conducted CF training for state and regional level civil society groups. FFI?s current strategic plan includes: i) The continued development of CF models to become self-funding, and ii) Evidence-based advocacy to streamline the CF application procedure. The long-term sustainability of CF in Myanmar may not be clear for some years, as even the oldest commercial CF trees are only 15 years old, but CF seems to offer considerable potential to provide a supply of timber and therefore generate substantial revenues for local communities. The current reforms in the Myanmar forest sector and the EU FLEGT initiative are providing an unprecedented opportunity to clarify community rights over CF timber and by doing so to promote the expansion and sustainability of CF. This report was prepared under an FFI project supported by the FAO/EU FLEGT Support Programme, which promotes the implementation of the FLEGT Action Plan by improving forest governance, providing technical assistance, and building capacity through funding projects in eligible countries..."
Source/publisher: Myanmar Conservation and Development Program (MCDP)
Date of publication: 2014-09-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.93 MB
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Title: Inle Lake Conservation and Rehabilitation Project
Description/subject: "... Inle Lake situated in Southern Shan State is well known by local populace and foreign visitors for the natural beauty of the lake waters, surrounding mountain ranges, tomato floating gardens and leg rowers of boats. The lake plays a vital role for the ecosystem and economy of Shan State, providing many important goods and services for the communities. It is an ASEAN heritage site and also on the tentative list of UNESCO World Heritage sites. It is the main water source for Lawpita hydroelectricity power plant, a major tourist attraction site and a habitant for rich biodiversity and traditional culture. The lake is now facing devastating effects of unsustainable practices in forestry, agriculture and fishing activities. The situation is accelerated by impact of climate change. Water surface area and sanitation is decreasing, fish and plant species are disappearing at a fast rate while water hyacinth species are increasing, blocking water ways and dominating other useful water cress that farmers use for building floating gardens. Therefore with the collaboration of Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF), UNDP and UNESCO, a fund has been provided from Norwegian Government to implement conservation and rehabilitation activities in the area. UNDP acting as the funding agency is working together with implementing partners to restore the area with the assistance of local communities. Due to the need of the communities, organic farming and market linkages activity has been implemented by Doe Taung Thu, a local non-government organization. For Organic farming, farmers have been trained in compost making, vermiculture, production of agriculture organic inputs such as natural pesticides, plant juice, fruit juice containing indigenous micro-organisms. With these products farmers are utilizing natural resources in the area. In addition an attempt is made to utilize water hyacinth for agricultural use. Objectives  To collect water hyacinth from water ways and shred into small pieces for compost making  To decrease water hyacinth in the lake and clear water ways for easy access to villages  To use shredded water hyacinth for mulching crops in a form of composting  To conserve moisture in soil by mulching, protect soil erosion and slow down rain run off so that moisture can penetrate deep down to the roots  To prevent rain splashing onto leaves and minimize leaf diseases  To suppress weeds and minimize weeding  To use chopped water hyacinth to feed earth worms  To increase chicken and duck feed for communities..."
Heather Morris, U Myint Zaw
Source/publisher: Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF)
Date of publication: 2011-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 404.88 KB
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Title: HURFOM 20th Anniversary Pamphlet မွန်ပြည်လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဖောင်ဒေးရှင်း နှစ်-၂၀ ပြည့် လက်ကမ်းစာစောင် (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Description/subject: မွန်ပြည်လူ့အခွင့်အရေးဖောင်ဒေးရှင်း၏ နှစ် (၂၀) ပြည့်အမှတ်တရ ထုတ်ဝေသည့် လက်ကမ်းစာစောင်
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma (HURFOM)
Date of publication: 2014-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 2.45 MB
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Title: "The Mon Forum" (Burmese) No. 2/2016 (April 2016) "မွန်လူထုအသံ" အတွဲ (၄)၊ အမှတ် (၂)၊ ဧပြီလ (၁၅) ၂၀၁၆ (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma (HURFOM)
Date of publication: 2016-04-15
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 1.14 MB
Local URL: PDF icon MF-2016-04-bu.pdf
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Title: "The Mon Forum" (Burmese) No. 1/2016 (February 2016) "မွန်လူထုအသံ" အတွဲ (၄)၊ အမှတ် (၁)၊ ဖေဖော်ဝါရီလ (၁၅) ၂၀၁၆ (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma (HURFOM)
Date of publication: 2016-02-15
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 1.39 MB
Local URL: PDF icon MF-2016-02-bu.pdf
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Title: "The Mon Forum" (Burmese) No. 6/2015 (December 2015) "မွန်လူထုအသံ" အတွဲ (၃)၊ အမှတ် (၆)၊ ဒီဇင်ဘာ (၁၅) ၂၀၁၅ (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma (HURFOM)
Date of publication: 2015-12-15
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 1.05 MB
Local URL: PDF icon MF-2015-12-bu.pdf
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Title: "The Mon Forum" (Burmese) No. 3/2015 (June 2015) "မွန်လူထုအသံ" အတွဲ (၃)၊ အမှတ် (၃)၊ ဇွန်လ (၁၅) ၂၀၁၅ (Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Source/publisher: Human Rights Foundation of Monland - Burma (HURFOM)
Date of publication: 2015-06-15
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Type: Individual Documents
Language: Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 716.25 KB
Local URL: PDF icon Mf-2015-06-bu.pdf
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Title: We Will Manage Our Own Natural Resources
Description/subject: "... This piece of community initiated action research reveals a number of lessons we can learn. The authors try to reflect the challenges of and opportunities for community based natural resources management in a seemingly forgotten Karen controlled area of southern Myanmar. The paper examines a number of case studies including the construction of a local water supply system, the establishment of fish conservation zones and community-driven forest conservation. An evolutionary development of community based networks such as CSLD (Community Sustainable Livelihood and Development), IRIP-NET (Tenasserim River and Indigenous People Network) and RKIP (Rays of Kamoethway Indigenous People and Nature) and their collaborative action to address emerging Natural Resources Management issues in their land are well illustrated in the paper..."
Source/publisher: Tenasserim River & Indigenous People Networks (TRIP NET), Rays of Kamoethway Indigenous People and Nature (RKIPN)
Date of publication: 2015-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-18
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 3.13 MB
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Title: The Economic Value of Forest Ecosystem Services in Myanmar and Options for Sustainable Financing
Description/subject: "... This document reports on a study carried out to assess the value of the forest sector to Myanmar?s economy, in order to justify and identify niches for developing forest-based payments for ecosystem services (PES) and other mechanisms that can be used to generate financing for forest conservation. The study focuses on nine categories of forest ecosystem services that are of high importance in economic and human wellbeing terms, and for which sufficient data are available to enable monetary valuation: wood-based biomass and energy, wild foods, animal-based energy, watershed protection, coastal protection, carbon sequestration, maintenance of nursery populations and habitats, pollination and seed dispersal, and nature-based recreation and tourism. The study first assesses the baseline: it identifies the ecosystem services that are currently being generated by the forest sector, and estimates their economic value. It then models two possible policy and management futures: ?Forest Degradation”, under which forest lands and resources continue to be degraded and over-exploited; and ?Forest Conservation”, under which forests are used sustainably and conserved effectively according to the goals and targets laid out in the Forestry Masterplan..."
Lucy Emerton, Yan Min Aung
Source/publisher: Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF), EU
Date of publication: 2013-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-18
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.97 MB
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Title: Following the Money: An Advocate?s Guide to Securing Accountability in Agricultural Investments
Description/subject: "... Large-scale agricultural investments ? in plantations, processing plants or contract farming schemes, for example ? have increased in recent years, particularly in developing countries. Investment in the agriculture sector can bring much needed support for rural development, but communities have also witnessed significant negative impacts. Some of the most serious involve local landholders being displaced from their lands and losing access to natural resources critical for their livelihoods and wellbeing. Instead of contributing to rural development, ill-conceived investments can undermine people?s rights to food, to water or to decent work. Improving accountability is essential in ensuring that investment processes respond to local needs and aspirations and respect human rights. Yet many deals struck between companies and governments to establish agricultural ventures are not fully transparent, making it difficult for the public and local communities to scrutinise projects before they materialise on the ground. Despite international human rights law and best practice requiring full transparency, public participation, and free prior and informed consent of local communities, civil society participation is often missing and once negative impacts have occurred citizens may struggle to have their voices heard or hold the company or the government to account. Weak governance is often accompanied by limited accountability to citizens. Yet, despite these challenges, many citizens have been able to hold companies and governments to account. For this to happen, local communities and the organisations that support them have to get organised, get informed and be strategic. Supporting affected communities to get organised so that they can collectively challenge or influence the project is essential to any successful advocacy. Success can take a long time ? sometimes involving years of struggle ? so ensuring strong community solidarity is key. Communities should be aware of their rights and what laws, regulations and policies are in place to protect them. An organised and informed community can then begin to devise a sophisticated advocacy strategy to achieve their goals. Usually the first step is to take complaints directly to local authorities, national authorities or the business operating on the ground. But when these approaches have limited success, communities and their supporters should not give up. There are other strategies that can be tried which reach beyond the borders of the project and the country where it is located. Behind most large-scale agricultural projects is a web of global actors that make the project possible. These actors include banks and companies that are funding the project and the companies that are buying the produce being grown or processed by it. All of these actors are necessary to the project?s success, and all are aiming to earn a profit from it in one way or another. They all have a relationship with the business operating on the ground and have the ability to influence it. All of these actors have some responsibility to ensure that the project does not harm communities. Knowing who is financing the project, who is buying the produce and who else is making the project possible and profitable ? in other words, ?following the money? ? opens up a range of opportunities for improved accountability. We call the web of actors involved in a project an ?investment chain?. Within this chain there are ?pressure points?. If affected communities can identify the strongest pressure points and take actions directed at effectively influencing key actors in the investment chain, they are more likely to achieve their goals. Understanding investment chains and pressure points, and effectively making use of them, can prove difficult. This Guide provides information, practical tips and exercises on how to map an investment chain behind a project, identify the strongest pressure points along the chain and then devise effective advocacy strategies that leverage those points. It explains what you need to know, the challenges you may face and the strengths and weaknesses of a range of advocacy options. Examples are provided from cases around the world where communities have tried to ?follow the money? and have used a number of strategies to hold investors and governments to account..."
Emma Blackmore, Natalie Bugalski, David Pred
Source/publisher: International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) and Inclusive Development International (IDI)
Date of publication: 2014-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-18
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 7 MB
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Title: A Survey of the State of Disclosure of Environmental Impact Assessments in Myanmars Oil and Gas Sector
Description/subject: "... This survey examines the state of disclosure of Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) and Initial Environmental Examinations (IEE) conducted by oil and gas companies in Myanmar who were awarded blocks after 2013. The survey reveals that 11 out of 19 offshore blocks (58%) have disclosed IEEs and 4 out of 15 onshore blocks (26%) have disclosed EIAs. It identifies the companies who have disclosed, and those who have not. It provides links to the IEE/EIA reports, and associated Environmental Management Plans (EMPs). The Executive Summaries of most disclosed IEE/EIA are available in Burmese as well as English, in line with the emerging guidance from MOECAF. The overall level of disclosure in the oil and gas sector is superior to other sectors in Myanmar where the IEE/EIA process has yet to be consistently applied, such as mining and construction. However some oil and gas companies have not disclosed their IEE or EIA reports. These are predominantly those with onshore blocks, who are mostly smaller companies and with fewer public commitments to operating to global standards than the offshore operators. They signed contracts 6-12 months earlier and may have undertaken their EIA/IEE in 2014. The survey does not attempt to comment on the quality of these IEE/EIA. However a quick review and anecdotal evidence suggests that the IEE/EIA reports disclosed by international oil/gas companies, who have used experienced international EIA consultancy firms partnering with Myanmar EIA consultancies, are generally of a higher quality ? and cost - than those seen by MCRB for projects in other sectors in Myanmar. It is hoped that their example will lead to a raising of standards for EIA and disclosure across all sectors. The survey also analyses the challenges faced by companies in complying with the new requirement for IEE/EIA and disclosure, and makes recommendations for how these can be addressed. The issue of pre-existing projects is highlighted, which, under Article 8 of the new EIA Procedures, need to take steps to obtain an Environmental Compliance Certificate. The rationale for undertaking this research assumes that website disclosure, in addition to being a legal requirement under the new EIA procedures, will allow stakeholders to access and read the reports. These stakeholders ? who may include national and regional government officials and parliamentarians, civil society organisations, local communities and the media ? will therefore have the opportunity to study the assessments and engage critically with companies over the contractual commitments included in them, and hold companies to account for their environmental and social performance. However this requires those stakeholders to ?do their homework? and read the IEE/EIA. This survey is therefore also intended to raise awareness of the availability of these assessments; encourage stakeholders to read and engage with the EIA process; and encourage development partners to build their capacity to do so..."
Inna Lazareva, Vicky Bowman
Source/publisher: Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB)
Date of publication: 2016-02-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-18
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 710.4 KB
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Title: Myanmar?s Rosewood Crisis: Why Key Species and Forest Must be Protected Through CITES
Description/subject: "... Extremely rapid growth in Chinese imports of ?redwood?, ?rosewoods? or ?Hongmu? timbers from Myanmar in the past two years is directly driving increased illegal and unsustainable logging, posing a real threat to governance, the rule of law and the viability Myanmar?s dwindling forests. EIA research shows that, based on current trends, the two most targeted Hongmu species in Myanmar - tamalan and padauk - could be logged to commercial extinction in as little as three years. With financial rewards for illegal loggers and timber smugglers dwarfing traditional incomes, and evidence of corruption facilitating illegal business, Myanmar?s domestic controls will be unable to effectively stem illegal trade. Myanmar urgently needs to engender legal reciprocity from strategic timber trade partners, particularly China, to ensure Myanmar?s forestry and trade laws are respected along its land border. In the absence of laws prohibiting illegal timber in China, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) presents the most immediate and effective mechanism to secure China?s respect for Myanmar?s forestry and trade laws. The Myanmar Government should seek CITES Appendix III protection for its at-risk Hongmu species ? Dalbergia oliveri / bariensis (tamalan) and Pterocarpus macrocarpus (padauk) - at the soonest opportunity to ensure trade is in line with sustainable exploitation of existing standing stocks. The CITES community should assist Myanmar in both instituting and enforcing CITES listings for these key species, and in seeking regional Appendix II listings by the 17th CITES Conference of the Parties (CoP17) in 2016. Enhancing the capacity of Myanmar?s existing CITES Management and Scientific Authorities will be an important element of this work...."
Source/publisher: EIA
Date of publication: 2013-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-17
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.35 MB
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Title: Myanmar Forest Sector Legality Analysis
Description/subject: "... This report has been prepared by NEPCon1 on behalf of ETTF, with funding from the UK Government?s Department For International Development, DFID. The goal of evaluating forest and timber legality issues of Myanmar is to support the development of long term sustainability solutions of the forest and timber industry. With this report ETTF specifically wishes to pinpoint relevant challenges to the Myanmar timber industry with regard to the requirements of the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR). One important question currently posed by stakeholders is: ?Will Myanmar be able to export timber to the EU considering the EUTR requirements and definition of legality”? Trade sanctions imposed on Myanmar were recently suspended, and focus is now being given to the potential for sustainable management of natural resources, including forests. The Myanmar government and timber industry are showing increased interest in improving the management of forest. Specifically, the Forest Department has invested in a number of staff trainings since 2011. After a recent visit by ETTF as part of a wider mission organised by the European Forest Institute and the EU Delegation in Bangkok, it is clear that there is a strong will to maintain the forests and develop the local industry. With this in mind the present project will aim to identify: 1. applicable legislation for forest management and transport of timber 2. potential gaps in current forest management practices in Myanmar between the legal framework requirements and actual practice 3. weaknesses in the existing legal framework (laws and regulations), that hinder effective verification of legality and identification of timber origin at the point of export The current report aims at providing an overview of potential risks of legal non-compliances in the forest sector in Myanmar, and also to provide inputs for how these risks can be managed and support the efforts to enable Myanmar to export legal and, on the long term, certified sustainable timber to the international markets. It should be underlined that this report does not provide any formal approval of the forest management practices, timber trade procedures, processing and trade systems of Myanmar. Based on the EU definition of forest sector legality, this report describes issues affecting the risk that timber from Myanmar has been harvested or traded illegally..."
Source/publisher: NEPCon, European Timber Trade Federation (ETTF)
Date of publication: 2013-08-31
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-17
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.81 MB
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Title: Myanmar Ecological Forecasting: Utilizing NASA Earth Observations to Monitor, Map, and Analyze Mangrove Forests in Myanmar for Enhanced
Description/subject: "... Mangrove forests are one of the most valuable, thriving, and diverse ecosystems on the planet, but they are becoming increasingly exploited and mismanaged (Lee 1999; Giri et al. 2008). In Myanmar, many of these mangrove stands flourished for centuries, virtually untouched until extensive deforestation began in the late 1970?s. At the time there was no legislation to promote sustainable forest management, and as a result the forests were depleted at alarming rates. During the 1990?s, multiple environmental acts were passed to help regulate tree harvesting processes, including the 1992 Forest Law and the 1995 Forest Policy, but they were only mildly successful and difficult to enforce (Oo 2002). The 2000?s brought a new chapter as Myanmar?s expanding economy and lifted political embargos created an explosion of infrastructure and agriculture, once again encroaching on the mangrove?s habitat. Even with the increasing development and encroachment on mangroves, Myanmar?s long state of isolation has made it one of the most species rich countries in all of South-east Asia, and is considered to be one of the last strongholds for large mammals such as tigers and elephants (Leimgruber etal. 2005). In a country with such rich biodiversity and a large dependence on natural resources for income, fuel, and food, preserving Myanmar?s mangroves and raising awareness about sustainability has become a national priority. This study mapped the spatial extent of three main mangrove regions along the coast of Myanmar during 2000 and 2013, including the Ayeyarwardy Delta, Rakhine and Tanintharyi regions (Oo 2002). The three regions are spread along the coast and vary in population density, which provides a valuable comparison among the regions as to how human and economic pressures can affect mangroves. The Ayeyarwady Delta is centrally located and has the highest population density, followed by Rakhine to the north, and the most remote region being the Tanintharyi to the south. A land change model was then used to produce change maps between 2000 and 2013 and project mangrove coverage to the year 2030 to help resource managers and policy makers craft future decisions. Once the mangroves were classified and projected, SRTM data were used to derive tree canopy heights and biomass estimations using allometric equations. Mangroves in Myanmar house thriving biodiversity and provide citizens with essential natural products such as food, firewood, and construction materials (Oo 2002). This ecological forecasting project helped the Myanmar government visualize and quantify their current largest mangrove areas, as well as shed light on the success of previous preservation efforts that may influence future conservation strategies. This project ultimately allowed important decision makers to assess the negative impacts that have occurred due to the deforestation and degradation of mangrove ecosystems. To successfully implement this study and its findings, Dr. Peter Leimgruber and Ellen Aiken at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute were irreplaceable as they officially handed off the project and its decision making tools to the Myanmar Ministry of Environment, Conservation and Forestry. The project will serve as a valuable reference for efficiently allocating resources and man power, while adapting new management strategies to the changing mangrove landscape..."
Samuel J. Weber, Louis Keddell, Mohammed Kemal
Source/publisher: NASA
Date of publication: 2014-04-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-17
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.64 MB
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Title: Legally and Illegally Logged Out: Drivers of Deforestation & Forest Degradation in Myanmar
Description/subject: "... Myanmar?s forest and timber sector has been central to the country?s economy and society, particularly over the last century. Since the colonial era, timber has been a major export revenue earner to Burma/Myanmar and thus subject to much political debate (Bryant 1996). In addition to timber export revenues, the forests of Myanmar have always provided timber and non-timber forest products for domestic consumption as well as a range of environmental services including water catchment, habitat for flora and fauna, carbon storage, and soil nutrient recovery in rotational agriculture. Myanmar?s forests have contained some of the most valued timbers in the world ? particularly rosewoods and teak. Now, amidst unprecedented political reforms in Myanmar, the forest and timber sector is currently undergoing a process of reform. This is indicated by a number of policy changes, most significantly: 1. The 2014 Log Export Ban ? which has made it illegal to export unprocessed logs 2. The Government?s engagement in a Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) process with the European Union?s Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) initiative, requiring transparency and compliance improvements that are mutually agreed upon between the government, the timber sector and civil society. This policy redirection is essential, although long overdue. Practical implementation is inevitably going to take time and face obstacles as powerful political-economic interests allied to the former military regime will seek to maintain their access to timber and land as well as control over revenue flows associated with the commercial utilisation of these national resources. Meanwhile the Ministry of Environment Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF) is under strong pressure from international timber traders to increase supply, more evidently recent pressure from China, and also missions from European and US timber sector representatives. This pressure is due to a combination of factors; growing demand around the world, declining supply of tropical hardwood from shrinking forests, and growing stringency around compliance concerning illegal sourcing. In order to respond to these pressures the authors have tried to clarify the status of the timber industry, the status of the forest resource including its management, and the challenges for reform..."
Thorsten Treue, Oliver Springate-Baginski, Kyaw Htun
Source/publisher: ALARM/DCA
Date of publication: 2016-02-29
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-17
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 2.93 MB
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Title: Land Suitability for Oil Palm in Southern Myanmar
Description/subject: "... The first commercial small-scale oil palm plantations were introduced to Myanmar in 1926 covering 120 ha. In the 1980?s the European Economic Community and Swiss government implemented a palm oil project to stimulate growth in the sector. As of 2014 401,813 ha have been allocated and 134,539 ha planted. The government target is to plant 282,470 ha by 2030. The land is allocated to 44 companies, comprising 43 local companies and one Foreign Direct Investment. Three foreign companies have joint-ventures with local companies. Although much land is now planted, there appears to be significant scope to improve yields with better technical capacity and planting material. Down-stream, there are five mills owned by three companies with crude palm oil (CPO) processing capacity varying from 1.5 to 60 tonnes of fresh fruit bunch per hour (Zaw Win, 2014). Expansion of mills currently faces financing constraints. The main driver for expansion is to meet domestic demand for edible oil; there are 60 million people in Myanmar consuming 400-500,000 metric tonnes of edible oil (palm oil, sesame and ground nut). Myanmar is importing palm oil; in 2012 this was 330,000 metric tonnes with a value of $376 million from Indonesia and Malaysia. Self sufficiency in edible palm oil is a national target, but local production is currently dwarfed by these imports. Oil palm plantations in Myanmar are principally found within a narrow belt of coastal lowlands in Myeik and Kawthaung Districts (Figure 1). Donald et al. 2014 report that potential productivity in this area is low by international standards (Figure 2) due to climatic conditions. As a contribution to assessing the long term commercial viability of Myanmar?s oil palm industry, as well as its social and environmental impacts, we surveyed the agroecological conditions where it presently occurs and where it could be further developed. The Agritech Portal of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University states that, ?Oil palm requires evenly distributed annual rainfall [of at least] 2000 mm without a defined dry season. In areas with a dry spell, deep soil with high water holding capacity and a shallow water table augmented with copious irrigation will satisfy the water requirement of the oil palm. ?Temperature can be a limiting factor for oil palm production. Best oil palm yields are obtained in places where a maximum average temperature of 29o-33oC and minimum average temperature of 22o-24oC are available. Higher diurnal temperature variation causes floral abortion in regions with a dry season.” Within Myanmar, annual rainfall, the presence of a distinct dry season (Figure 3) and elevation (an indicator of local variation in diurnal temperature range) already limit the area suitable for plantations. Sandy loam soils restrict the potential for irrigation and make the requirements for fertilizer high. Across the entire country, the duration and reliability of the wet season has decreased as climate variability has increased, and this trend is likely to continue..."
Stuart M. Sheppard, Earl C. Saxon
Source/publisher: Forest Inform/Fauna & Flora International (FFI)
Date of publication: 2014-06-17
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-17
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 4.08 MB
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Title: Exploring the Socio-Economic Situation of Plantation Villagers: A Case Study in Bago Yoma
Description/subject: "... Massive scale plantation forestry in Myanmar began in the early 1980s as a drastic measure to fulfil the increasing demand for timber and to prevent the conversion of deteriorated forestland to agricultural land. More than 30,000 ha of forest plantations have annually been formed since 1984 (Myanmar Forest Department 2000). Myanmar has also launched a Special Teak Plantation Program in 1998 which has an annual plantation target of 8000 ha in addition to the normal plantation scheme. Myanmar Forest Department is recruiting shifting cultivators and applying the taungya method in plantation projects because it can avoid conflicts at the time of teak plantation establishment, achieve large plantation area targets in remote areas and overcome the problems of insufficient funding and insufficient labour. Further, as the plantation area is under the intensive care of taungya farmers for their intercrops, the Forest Department can expect a higher survival rate of trees for the first year. The Forest Department is planning a joint venture by establishing plantation villages near or inside the reserved forests with the aim of securing labour for plantation establishment at reduced cost and with increased efficiency, as well as protecting the existing natural resources including old plantations more intensively with the participation of the taungya farmers. In brief, Myanmar Forest Department is trying to get people participation in the promotion of reforestation. From the commencement of the project, the foresters have been arguing about whether the project would create forest protective groups or forest destructive groups. Past experiences suggest that taungya farmers are likely to destroy the plantations once they have been established. ?Evidently there were destructions of many teak plantations and other plantations of valuable species during the Second World War (1942−45) and again during the 1988 pro-democracy movement by the villagers who had involved in establishment of those plantations? (Ba Kaung 2001). Why did the taungya farmers become destructive instead of the intended protective groups? In the author?s judgment, the underlying issue is an economic one, and it is essential to explore the socio-economic situations of the groups involved in taungya teak plantations..."
Tin Min Maung, Miho Yamamoto
Source/publisher: DSSENR Tokyo University of Agricultre and Technology
Date of publication: 2007-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-17
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 823.38 KB
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Title: National Land Use Policy (2016) - Excerpts on National Land Law Formulation
Description/subject: This document highlights, in English and Burmese, some key chapters of the National Land Use Policy: Objectives...Grants and Leases of Land at the Disposal of Government...Procedures related to Land Acquisition, Relocation, Compensation, Rehabilitation and Restitution...Land Use Rights of the Ethnic Nationalities...Equal Rights of Men and Women...Harmonization of Laws and Enacting New Law...Monitoring and Evaluation...Research and Development.
Source/publisher: Land Core Group
Date of publication: 2016-03-06
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf
Size: 315.34 KB
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Title: Democratic Change and Forest Governance in the Asia Pacific: Implications for Myanmar
Description/subject: ".. While the signs of democratization in a country may raise hopes of better natural resource governance, especially of forests, evidence from the Asia Pacific region in countries such as Indonesia and Cambodia demonstrates no significant relationship between a country?s transition toward democracy and better forestry governance. Myanmar?s transition to democracy is unlikely to counter this trend. Deeply vested interests operate within democratizing countries that outweight the support inside governments or civil society for improving forestry conservation..."
Stephen McCarthy
Source/publisher: East-West Center
Date of publication: 2013-11-30
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 452.37 KB
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Title: Deforestation in the Ayeyarwady Delta and the Conservation Implications of an Internationally Engaged Myanmar
Description/subject: "... Myanmar is a country of huge biodiversity importance that is undergoing major political change, bringing with it new international engagement. This includes access to international markets, which will likely spur investment in export-oriented agriculture, leading to increased pressures on already threatened ecosystems. This scenario is illustrated in the Ayeyarwady Delta, the country?s agricultural heartland sustaining high deforestation rates. Using the Delta as a model system, we use an integrated approach to inquire about whether and how imminent agricultural reforms associated with an internationally-engaged Myanmar could introduce new actors and incentives to invest in agricultural expansion that could affect deforestation rates. We use a novel remote sensing analysis to quantify deforestation rates for the Delta from 1978 to 2011, develop business-as-usual deforestation scenarios, and contextualize those results with an analysis of contemporary policy changes within Myanmar that are expected to alter the principal drivers of land-cover change. We show that mangrove systems of Myanmar are under greater threat than previously recognized, and that agriculture has been the principle driver of deforestation on the Delta. The centrality of agriculture to the Myanmar economy indicates that emerging policies are likely to tip the scales towards agricultural expansion, agro-industrial investment and potentially greater rates of deforestation due to the introduction of well-funded investors, insufficient land tenure agreements, and low governance effectiveness. The broad national challenge is to initiate environmental governance reforms (including safeguards) in the face of significant pressures for land grabbing and opportunistic resource extraction..."
Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies
Date of publication: 2011-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf pdf
Size: 782.94 KB 4.22 MB
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Title: Land and Law in Myanmar: A Practitioners Perspective Workshop - Report and Recommendations (English/ Burmese မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Description/subject: KEY RECOMMENDATIONS:- (1) TO MYANMAR LAWYERS: "a. Lawyers need to form strong networks and associations to support farmers, ethnic groups and community organizations... b. Lawyers need to develop new skills to participate in policy advocacy, including collecting data about current practices, and engage in a national debate about land rights... c. Lawyers working on land rights cases need to use all available tools to strengthen their case work (see annex 2 for a list of practical actions lawyers can take)..... (2) TO CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANISATIONS: a. CSO?s need to work with lawyers to understand the law regarding land ownership and use, how it is being applied and how it can be used to protect land rights and should share this knowledge with communities... b. CSOs should be involved in collecting evidence of the current relationships between communities and land; this will be essential for developing good policies and new laws..... (3) TO INTERNATIONAL DONORS: a. Donors must look beyond the letter of the law and information produced by the government to explore how laws are currently being applied and how the legal system operates in practice. Many challenges faced by lawyers working on land rights cases would not require legal reform to correct; international donors should demand immediate changes to remove some of the existing barriers to justice... b. International donors must translate information relating to land rights into Burmese as a minimum. Understanding of these issues and ongoing reform processes within Myanmar is currently very limited, with residents of Yangon and other cities able to access information far easier than people in rural areas; efforts need to be made to address geographic and ethnic differences in understanding."
Source/publisher: Myanmar Lawyers Network; Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC)
Date of publication: 2015-07-16
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English, Burmese (မြန်မာဘာသာ)
Format : pdf pdf pdf doc
Size: 315.61 KB 960.27 KB 823.85 KB 727.5 KB
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Title: Ceasefire Capitalism: Military-Private Partnerships, Resource Concessions and Military-State Building in the Burma-China Borderlands
Description/subject: "... Since ceasefire agreements were signed between the Burmese military government and ethnic political groups in the Burma?China borderlands in the early 1990s, violent waves of counterinsurgency development have replaced warfare to target politically-suspect, resource-rich, ethnic populated borderlands. The Burmese regime allocates land concessions in ceasefire zones as an explicit postwar military strategy to govern land and populations to produce regulated, legible, militarized territory. Tracing the relationship of military?state formation, land control and securitization, and primitive accumulation in the Burma?China borderlands uncovers the forces of what I am calling ?ceasefire capitalism?. This study examines these processes of Burmese military?state building over the past decade in resource-rich ethnic ceasefire zones along the Yunnan, China border. I will illustrate this contemporary and violent military?state formation process with two case studies focusing on northern Burma: logging and redirected timber trade flows, and Chinese rubber plantations as part of China?s opium substitution program..."
Kevin Woods
Source/publisher: The Journal of Peasant Studies
Date of publication: 2011-09-14
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 202.05 KB
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Title: Baseline Study 4, Myanmar: Overview of Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade
Description/subject: "... In the early 20th century, the scientific management of Myanmar?s natural forests under the Myanmar Selection System (MSS) was world-renown.1 By the 1970s, the MSS began to break down. Today, the application of scientific forestry in the country has been marginalized. Timber remains a significant source of revenue, although relatively less for the national Myanmar government as multi-billion dollar oil, gas, hydropower and other energy related contracts surge. Timber and other forest products represent a significant source of income for ethnic political groups, most notably in Kachin State along the border with China and Karen State along the Thai border. The Government of Myanmar has established development priorities in a number of sectors, including agriculture and forestry, but these plans are not detailed and mainly focus on output indicators. Overall, 70% of Myanmar?s population residing in rural areas (50-60% of the estimated total population of 60 million) depend heavily on forests for their basic needs (FAO, 2009). Some 500,000 people are thought to be dependent on the forestry sector for employment. The contribution of forestry to GDP was an estimated 1% in 1997?98 (ITTO, 2006), but timber exports alone constitute approximately 10% of Myanmar?s total official export earnings. Teak alone contributes 60-70% of the export earnings from forest products, but these exports are of an increasingly low-grade, which command lower prices than the high-quality teak that made Myanmar famous..."
Kevin Woods, Kerstin Canby
Source/publisher: Forest Trends
Date of publication: 2011-07-31
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-16
Type: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 1.72 MB
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