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The purpose of the Mekong Land Research Forum online site is to provide structured access to published and unpublished research on land issues in the Mekong Region. It is based on the premise that debates and decisions around land governance can be enhanced by drawing on the considerable volume of research, documented experience and action-based reflection that is available. The online site seeks to organise the combined work of many researchers, practitioners and policy advocates around key themes relevant to the land security, and hence well-being, of smallholders in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.
The research material on this site is mounted at three levels:
First, a selection of journal articles, reports and other materials is provided and organised thematically to assist researchers, practitioners and policy advocates to draw on one another’s work and hence build up a collective body of knowledge. This is the most “passive” presentation of the research material; our contribution is to find and select the most relevant material and to organise it into key themes. In some cases the entire article is available. In others, for copyright reasons, only an abstract or summary is available and users will need to access documents through the relevant journal or organisation.
Second, a sub-set of the articles has been annotated, with overall commentary on the significance of the article and the research on which it is based, plus commentary relevant to each of the key themes addressed by the article.
Third, the findings and key messages of the annotated articles are synthesised into summaries of each of fourteen key themes. For each key theme, there is a one-page overall summary. Extended summaries are being developed progressively for each theme as part of the Forum's ongoing activity.
Overall, we intend that this online site will contribute toward evidence-based progressive policy reform in the key area of land governance. We further hope that it will thereby contribute toward to the well-being of the rural poor, ethnic minorities and women in particular, who face disadvantage in making a living as a result of insecure land tenure.
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Resources
Displaying 201 - 205 of 564Reworking the land: A review of literature on the role of migration and remittances in the rural livelihoods of Southeast Asia
PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION: This paper reviews the literature on migration within and from rural areas of Southeast Asia to examine the effects of redistribution of labor and remittances on livelihoods and land-use practices, as well as contexts in which migration drives, yet is also driven by, social and environmental change. Gaps in the literature and areas of contention and debate are highlighted, informing an agenda for further research.
CP maize contract farming in Shan State, Myanmar: A regional case of a place-based corporate agro-feed system
The Bangkok-based Sino-Thai company Choern Pakard Group (CP Group), Asia's largest and most prominent agro-food/feed corporation, has led an industrial maize contract farming scheme with (ex-)poppy upland smallholders in Shan State, northern Myanmar to supply China’s chicken-feed market. Thailand, as a Middle-Income Country (MIC) and regional powerhouse, has long-tapped China’s phenomenal economic growth and undersupplied consumer demand.
REDD + at the crossroads: Choices and tradeoffs for 2015 – 2020 in Laos
To date, REDD+ projects in Laos have made relatively conservative choices on driver engagement, focusing on smallholder-related drivers like shifting cultivation and small-scale agricultural expansion, to the exclusion of drivers like agro-industrial concessions, mining concessions and energy and transportation infrastructure. While these choices have been based on calculated decisions made in the context of project areas, they have created a pair of challenges that REDD+ practitioners must currently confront. The first is lost opportunity.
Commercial Agriculture Expansion in Myanmar: Links to Deforestation, Conversion Timber, and Land Conflicts
PUBLISHER'S DESCRIPTION: An exclusive new analysis reveals that the Government of Myanmar has allocated at least 5.2 million acres and plans to allocate another 11 million acres of Southeast Asia’s last remaining biodiversity-rich high-value forests to make way for large-scale, private agribusiness projects that often never materialize. Many of these forest areas overlap with historical land claims made by Myanmar’s ethnic minority groups who will now permanently lose their land, further enflaming decades-old armed conflicts with the national government.
Intersections of land grabs and climate change mitigation strategies in Myanmar as a (post-) war state of conflict
Myanmar has recently positioned itself as the world’s newest frontier market, while simultaneously undergoing transition to a post-war, neoliberal state. The new Myanmar government has put the country’s land and resources up for sale with the quick passing of market-friendly laws turning land into a commodity. Meanwhile, the Myanmar government has been engaging in a highly contentious national peace process, in an attempt to end one of the world's longest running civil wars.