Oil palm plantations vs. shifting cultivation for indigenous peoples: Analyzing Mizoram's New Land Use Policy

Purabi Bose

Land Use Policy, 2019, vol. 81, issue C, 115-123

Abstract: Mizoram state of Northeast India is referred to as ‘Bamboo Queen’ for its largest bamboo forest. It is becoming famous for country's first commercial oil palm plantations. The state's 90% of the population are diverse ethnic minority tribes otherwise identified as indigenous peoples, traditionally practicing jhum or shifting cultivation. In 2011, Mizoram implemented New Land Use Policy (NLUP) to formalize forestland titles that has been till date decentralized and managed by traditional laws. How the centralized NLUP brings change by replacing shifting cultivation through settled farming i.e. mainly palm oil plantation is examined here. The paper analyzes the NLUP using empirical data collected from focus group discussions and interviews of diverse stakeholders, including indigenous peoples of two districts: Kolasib, and Lai Autonomous District Council of Lawngtlai. The study result indicates even after the NLUP the bamboo forests are allocated for shifting cultivation. These abandoned lands are then promoted by the Agriculture Department for palm oil plantations. Gender dynamics is observed wherein women's roles become ‘submissive’ in settled cultivation of oil palm as compared to their contribution in shifting cultivation. Private palm oil companies do not collect fruits from farmers living away from motorable roads, which pushes men to do daily-wage labour work, and women to do artisanal palm oil extraction at home. The key recommendations for implementing the NLUP are (a) introduce the RSPO sustainable certificate for palm oil, (b) acknowledges indigenous system of land-use for conservation and gender equity, and (c) prioritizing household land titling as well community land tenure.

Keywords: Mizoram; Women's artisanal palm oil; Shifting/Jhum/slash-and-burn farming; New Land Use Policy; Land tenure; Indigenous peoples; Bamboo forests (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837718306586
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:81:y:2019:i:c:p:115-123

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2018.10.022

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().