Community Forestry in Myanmar: Some field realities

INTRODUCTION:
"Myanmar’s Community Forestry programme began in with the Community Forestry Instruction of 1995. Since then over two hundred and fifty Forest User Groups have been formed across the country, and have taken responsibility for controlling, managing and sustainably using a wide range of forest. How have they faired?
In an effort to answer that question this paper presents the experiences from 16 randomly selected Forest User Groups across the country. They were visited by a research team in late 2010 during a Community Forestry study conducted by ECCDI, with technical support from the School of International Development, University of East Anglia, under funding support from the Pyoe Pin programme. Full findings from the study are presented in a separate report (Tint et al. 2011 ‘Community Forestry in Myanmar: Progress and Potentials’). This companion paper presents the local realities of community forestry experiences on a case by case basis.
The diverse range of stories here show that Forest User groups are struggling against a wide range of challenges, with very limited support in most cases, and only some are able to overcome them effectively. Regional conditions are a key factor, with the dry zone and Shan FUGs struggling much more than the more supportive environmental conditions in Kachin and the Delta...