Access to land for smallholder farmers is a critical foundation for food security in Myanmar's uplands. Land tenure guarantees seem to be eroding and access to land becoming more difficult in some upland areas. If this trend continues it may have negative impacts for food security and undermine environmental and economic sustainability. This briefing paper explores the relationship between land tenure and food security, as well as key institutional and other factors that influence land access and tenure for smallholder farmers in the uplands today.

Access to land for smallholder farmers is a critical foundation for food security in Myanmar's uplands. Land tenure guarantees seem to be eroding and access to land becoming more difficult in some upland areas. If this trend continues it may have negative impacts for food security and undermine environmental and economic sustainability. This briefing paper explores the relationship between land tenure and food security, as well as key institutional and other factors that influence land access and tenure for smallholder farmers in the uplands today...

Bouat talks about their need of a water filter.

 

Amleuam talks about his rights with the land.

 

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The forces of globalization, especially private investors from China, Vietnam and Malaysia are accelerating pressures on Cambodia, putting enormous pressure on ethnic Bunong traditional lands, natural resources, and cultural heritage. Exacerbating the situation, the Cambodian government permits -- even encourages -- foreign interests access to Bunong lands for mining, agricultural concessions, hydro-power, and other uses. 

... 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.

These documents summarise Urban LandMark's approach to incrementally securing tenure in informal settlements. This approach emphasises practical mechanisms that allow land rights to be upgraded over time. It has been developed from a range of activities, including input from research papers, a considerable number of interviews, and the testing of different processes with municipalities. The second report focuses on the notion of local land offices and their potential for promoting tenure security and incremental tenure processes. 

Village Focus helps families in rural villages in Laos and Cambodia. Dependent on the natural abundance of the wilderness around them for all things, they are often victims of profiteering in many forms. Images from Pajujeun, Pajudon, Ta-oy, Saneung and Phorbeuy villages in Laos, and Siem Reap province, Battambang and Mondulkiri provinces in Cambodia. Scenes of bomb craters, Typhoon Ketsana's destruction, a sacred forest reserve, water and sanitation projects, and food cultivation.

 

The young man was scared. The city government had instructed him to count the shacks in the settlement. He arrived smartly dressed carrying a briefcase and clipboard with pen in hand and a list of the shacks. His job was to find any new shacks without the official number painted on the door. But he immediately ran into problems. The local residents confronted him, asking what he was doing. Soon a small crowd had gathered. They took him into the community hall, where a meeting was under way. He explained that the city had sent him, but the local people were suspicious.

Since the 2008 food price crisis, foreign investors have been acquiring more and more land in poor countries for producing foodstuffs and biofuels for their own use. Such investments have the potential to promote rural development and food security worldwide. By the same token, however, there is the danger of countless small farmers losing their land, of food insecurity increasing in many places, and of social and ecological systems collapsing through pure "land grabbing".

This case study draws on research into some of the processes through which people access, hold, and trade land in poorer areas of towns and cities. The research was commissioned by Urban LandMark and undertaken by the Isandla Institute, Stephen Berrisford Consulting and Progressus Research and Development.