Myanmar: Understand Customary System before Implementing Laws

Mar 1, 2019 | Morung Express
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In 2014, the residents of Somra, a Naga village in Myanmar, found a new signboard posted on the side of the road inside the community watershed forest area. The sign announced the proposed designation of 5,000 acres of Public Protected Forest (PPF). Where exactly were these 5,000 acres within Somra’s customary land? Nobody in the village was sure because the government staff who posted the sign left without informing either the local customary or government authorities.