F.a: Securing Indigenous Communities’ Rights to Land and Natural Resources in Kayah State, Myanmar

General

In the state of Kayah, indigenous peoples' territories are threatened by widespread economic takeover, including forestry and mining. Most villagers have no officially recognized right to the land they till. The project carries out community mapping and do cumentation of existing customary land use and management in seven indigenous communities in the Hpruso area and utilizes this material for land rights advocacy work. The project communities have been internally displaced and settled in their present areas . The inhabitants of the area are heavily dependent on rotational rice cultivation. The fallow lands in rotational farming are usually categorized as fallow and vacant land under the current virgin, fallow, vacant (VFV) law (amended 2018), therefore those farming lands left fallow are under constant threat of being grabbed by the State as well as by powerful business groups. The purpose of this project is to expand an ongoing work and to include new communities in the face of the immediate threat of land g rabs. The documentation utilizes participatory action research methods. The data collection is based on teams of community representatives. Project communities will also receive training on relevant national and international legal frameworks and indigenou s peoples' rights. As a result of the project: the communities have documented their land use and management practices and the customary law guiding these; with the assistance of facilitators, the communities have delineated their village territories and p roduced a land use map; and the communities actively participate in lobbying activities in collaboration with allied organizations and networks at township, district and state level. Community networking and exchange of experiences will be created to provi de inspiration and help strengthening the self-confidence of communities to engage in advocacy and lobbying for the recognition of the customary communal land rights at different decision making levels in the government. The project covers seven villages n ear the town of Hpruso. In these communities, a total of 1089 people live in 199 households. After the project, project community leaders support the work of other communities, in order to bring about similar action in other communities and to make the lan d rights movement for indigenous peoples as broad and effective as possible. Project is implemented by Karuna Mission Social Solidarity-Loikaw.