... 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.

...In the last six to eight months there’s been a lot of commotion made about land disputes in Burma. Legally speaking, what’s setting the precedent for this to happen now?

Well the whole phenomenon needs to be looked at in terms of the history of the country when it comes to land ever since independence, whereby a system of law, which essentially gave all power to the state when it came to the control, use and allocation of land, was used and very often abused by those who were members of the state or closely associated with the state to acquire land for personal benefit.

Cutting 1136.49 hectares in Svay village, Chheungkou commune in Prey Nup district of Preah Sihanouk province from ELC of Mong Reththy ; Reclassifying unspecified size of land as state private land for donating to 401 families ; and Reserving unspecified size of land for physical infrastructure development.

The Farmland Law and the VFV Law were approved by Parliament on March 30th, 2012. There have
been a few improvements compared to previous laws such as recognition of
non-rotational taungya as
a legitimate land-use and recognition that farmers are using VFV lands without formal recognition by
the Government. However overall the Laws lack clarity and provide
weak protection of the rights of
smallholder farmers in upland areas and do not explicitly state the equal rights
of women to register

Cutting a total land of 7,926 hectares in Kbal Tuek commune of Tuek Phos district, and Krang Lovea and Tbeng Kpos communes of Samki Meanchey district in Kampong Chhang: 777 hectares from Phnom Oaral Wildlife Sanctuary; 573 hectares from 2002 Forest Cover; 2,418 hectares from Hun Sen Paper Tree Nursery Station; and 4,158 hectares from economic land concession of Pheapimex; Reclassifying as state private land for granting donation of ownership to 4,506 families; and requesting to grant private ownership over 547 land parcels to 184 families who are actually occupying, using and cultivating th

Executive Summary:

A network of land-focused civil society organisations has raised concerns that bylaws for two new pieces of land legislation fail to offer proper protection for upland farmers who use shifting cultivation, leaving millions at risk of losing their land tenure rights.

Land Core Group chairman U Shwe Thein said that the recently introduced bylaw for the Farmland Law interprets taungya, or upland farming, as only fields under permanent cultivation. This leaves farmers who practise upland shifting cultivation with little protection from losing their lands...

Cutting 1,020 hectares of land in Krangleav commune of Rolea Bphea district in Kampong Chhnang province from economic land concession of Pheapimex, and reclassifying 935 ha as state private land for granting donation ownership to 729 families who are actually occupying, using and cultivating the land, and reserving 85 ha as permanent forest reserve of community forest .

Cutting 3,495 hectares of land in Pich Changvar commune of Boribou district in Kampong Chhnang province: 291 ha from 2002 Forest Cover; and 3,204 ha economic land concession of Pheapimex; reclassifying the land as state private land and granting donation to 1,178 families who are actually occupying, using and cultivating the land.

Cutting 436.57 ha in Marakteab village of Tros commune and Tar Sek village of Kor Ky commune in Romeas Hek district of Svay Reang province: 172.10 ha from 2002 Forest Cover, 228.47 ha from ELC of An Mady, and 36 ha from SLC program; Reclassifying or/and donating unspecified size of land to 298 families; Reserving unspecified size of land public interest use; and Granting ownership to 510 private land parcels and 1 public land parcel.

LPI Goal 

The principle goal of the LPI is “to assist member states in the implementation of the AU Declaration on land Issues and challenges in Africa, in accordance with the Framework and Guidelines on Land Policy in Africa, in order to achieve socio-economic development, peace and security, and environmental sustainability”