Commercial Agriculture Expansion in Myanmar: Links to Deforestation, Conversion Timber, and Land Conflicts
Publisher: Forest Trends
Author(s): Kevin Woods
Date: 2015
Topics: Governance, Land, Renewable Resources
Countries: Myanmar
In Myanmar, the clearing of forests to make way for the expansion of commercial agricultural fields is increasingly the leading driver of deforestation, alongside legal and illegal logging. This conversion is now taking place at an unprecedented rate and the government is encouraging increasing levels of investment for large-scale industrial agricultural expansion. However, laws and institutions are not yet able to regulate these large-scale land acquisitions This report: 1) Collates, for the first time, new quantitative and qualitative data on the extent and nature of the expansion of agribusiness into the forests of Myanmar, supplemented with two field case studies; 2) Analyzes the role that current laws and policies, and revenues generated from the sale of conversion timber, plays in driving this expansion; and 3) Summarizes issues related to the socio-economic impacts of this development and the institutions regulating both the process of conversion as well as the resultant conversion timber.