The government has promised to secure ethnic rights and the rights of original landowners in setting a new national land use policy...A national forum to discuss a draft national land use policy, which will create a framework for a new national land law, was held on June 29 and 30 in Nay Pyi Taw. Discussion was dominated by the question of the rights of ethnic community organisations and other rights groups.

Villagers in Karen areas of southeast Myanmar continue to face widespread land confiscation at the hands of a multiplicity of actors. Much of this can be attributed to the rapid expansion of domestic and international commercial interest and investment in southeast Myanmar since the January 2012 preliminary ceasefire between the Karen National Union (KNU) and the Myanmar government. KHRG first documented this in a 2013 report entitled ‘Losing Ground’, which documented cases of land confiscation between January 2011 and November 2012.

Oil, gas and mineral revenues are generated in nearly every state and region in Myanmar, with the most important interests lying in Bago, Kachin, Magway, Mandalay, Sagaing, Shan and Tanintharyi. In these and other regions, petroleum and mining activities have had significant impacts on livelihoods in affected communities, and on the local environment. There is also a perceived lack of benefits from extraction accruing to local populations.