Summary: "For decades, international lenders, agencies, and foundations
as well as national and local governments have spent millions of dollars trying
to “modernize” the traditional practices of farmers in many mountainous
areas of Southeast Asia—an agenda driven by the belief that their age-old
shifting cultivation practices (known pejoratively as “slash and burn”) are
deforesting Asia. But a new look at how forests fare under shifting cultivation
(as opposed to under permanent agriculture) clearly demonstrates that efforts

Northern Burma’s borderlands have undergone dramatic changes in the last two decades. Three main and
interconnected developments are simultaneously taking place in Shan State and Kachin State: (1) the increase
in opium cultivation in Burma since 2006 after a decade of steady decline; (2) the increase at about the same
time in Chinese agricultural investments in northern Burma under China’s opium substitution programme,
especially in rubber; and (3) the related increase in dispossession of local communities’ land and livelihoods

This Handbook is designed for both farmers and students to use in the field and during training. It is divided into eight sections, each one containing several topics and all illustrated with large clear pictures. The Handbook can be read from beginning to end or each topic can be read separately. Space is provided for readers to take notes and to add their own local knowledge...Our people have always been farmers. Farmers of the river lands, of the mountains, and of the forests.

This Handbook is designed for both farmers and students to use in the field and
during training. It is divided into eight sections, each one containing several
topics and all illustrated with large clear pictures. The Handbook can be read
from beginning to end or each topic can be read separately. Space is provided
for readers to take notes and to add their own local knowledge...Our people have always been farmers. Farmers of the river lands, of the
mountains, and of the forests. Due to civil war in Burma, more and more of

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in April 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in Te Naw Th'Ri Township, Tenasserim Division between June 2010 and April 2011. The report details abuses related to land confiscation by Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) officials; forced labour, including forced USDP membership; and attacks on villages in hiding, including the burning of houses, food stores, a school dormitory and supplies by Tatmadaw forces.

Several articles on land grabbing in Burma/Myanmar

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and international levels, and fostering new forms of cooperation and alliance-building. Most of our work is oriented towards, and carried out in, Africa, Asia and Latin America.

The current reforms in Burma/Myanmar are worsening land grabs in the country. Since the mid-2000s there has been a spike in land grabs, especially leading up to the 2010 national elections. Military and government authorities have been granting large-scale land concessions to well-connected Burmese companies.

A global coalition of 14 Partners and over 120 international, regional and community organizations advancing forest tenure, policy, and market reforms.....

Core Beliefs:

"Based on our experience, we find that empowerment of rural people and asset-based development are part of a process that is dependent on a set of enabling conditions, including security of tenure to access and use natural resources. As a coalition of diverse and varied organizations, RRI is guided by a set of core beliefs...

Rights of Poor Communities Must Be Recognized and Strengthened:

... 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

Abstract"
"This research was framed by a human rights approach to development as pursued by Amartya
Sen. Freedoms are not only the primary ends of development but they are the principle means of
development. The research was informed by international obligations to human rights and was placed
within a context of global pluralism and recognition of universal human dignity. The first research aim
was to study the State Peace and Development Council military regime confiscation of land and labour of

...The objective of this research paper is to describe specific ways in which the State
Peace and Development Council (SPDC) deprives the people of Burma of their land
and livelihood. Confiscation of land, labour, crops and capital; destruction of person
and property; forced labour; looting and expropriation of food and possessions;
forced sale of crops to the military; extortion of money through official and
unofficial taxes and levies; forced relocation and other abuses by the State...