State’s Techniques and Local Communities’ Strategies in Land Contestations over Agro-Based Community Forests in Myanmar

Phyu Phyu Han (), Win Min Paing, Masahiko Ota and Takahiro Fujiwara ()
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Phyu Phyu Han: Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Win Min Paing: Graduate School of Bioresource and Bioenvironmental Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan
Masahiko Ota: Institute of Integrated Science and Technology, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki 852-8521, Japan
Takahiro Fujiwara: Faculty of Agriculture, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 819-0395, Japan

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 3, 1-20

Abstract: Forest tenure reforms through community-based forest management programs have gained popularity in the Global South. Agricultural land use and local forest encroachment have caused the global decline of natural forests. Most community forestry (CF) studies have considered local communities as a state intervention target, underestimating their agency in local forest management. Therefore, this study aims to scrutinize land-related and counter techniques employed by the forest department and local communities in Myanmar to determine the incongruent and insufficient arrangement of de jure procedures in state CF programs. The findings reveal that although the CF program is deployed as a land control tool to regain the “reserved forest” status, realizing its institutional goals is difficult owing to local communities’ land utilization practices. Additionally, CF’s rigid institutional approach cannot manage changing, diverse, and minute local land control techniques. Meanwhile, local communities lack the indispensable, customary arrangements, leading to unequal land use, owing to which the state has to become a guarantor of common forest resources. Thus, this nature of contesting encroached forests reveals the need to critically reconsider land rights and invoke more profound steps beyond the framing of the contemporary “bundle of rights”.

Keywords: forest tenure; degraded forest; power relation; agroforestry; reforestation; land access (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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