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... 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...
