In 2004, Ngwe Yi Pale Company began coal mining in Nam Ma tract of Hsipaw township. The mining has destroyed farmlands and irrigation sources, and caused water and air pollution, mi-pacing over 3,000 people. The Nam Ma villagers have been calling for a stop to the mining since April 1, 2016, but the company has continued expanding the mining area. In May 2016, the Burma Army carried out an attack in the area to clear out the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army, and protect the mining operations. Villagers were killed, arrested and beaten.

The Asian Human Rights Commission has since mid-2012 closely followed, documented and reported on the struggle of farmers in the Letpadaung Hills of central Burma against the expansion of a copper mining operation under a military-owned holding company and a partner company from China.

Customary Tenure and Land Alienation in Myanmar:
"Customary communal tenure is characteristic of many local upland communities in S.E. Asia. These
communities have strong ancestral relationships to their land, which has never been held under
individual rights, but considered common property of the village. Communal tenure has been the
norm and land has never been a commodity. This is an age-old characteristic of many societies
globally. Prior to the publication in 1861 of Ancient Law by the English jurist Henry Sumner Maine,

၁။ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံသည် တိုင်းရင်းသားလူမျိုးပေါင်းစုံတို့ စုပေါင်းနေထိုင်လျှက်ရှိသော နိုင်ငံတစ်နိုင်ငံဖြစ်ပြီး၊ တိုင်းဒေသကြီး ရ ခု၊ ပြည်နယ် ရ ခုနှင့် ပြည်ထောင်စုနယ်မြေတို့တွင် ပြန့်နှံ့နေထိုင်လျက်ရှိသည်။ နိုင်ငံတော်သည် အရှေ့တောင်အာရှတွင် တည်ရှိပြီး ပထဝီအနေအထားအရသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ စီးပွားရေးအရသော်လည်းကောင်း၊ နိုင်ငံရေးအရသော်လည်းကောင်း အချက်အချာကျသည့်နိုင်ငံဖြစ်ပါသည်။

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in March 2013 by a community member describing events occurring in Papun District between January and March 2013. The report describes the use of villagers from approximately 40 villages in Htee Th'Daw Hta village tract for forced labour. The perpetrators were led by the presiding monk of Myaing Gyi Ngu, U Thuzana. Villagers, including elderly people, women and children, have been forced to work on the construction of the Htee Lah Eh Hta Bridge.

Updating of cadastral maps were conducted using satellite image and the changes of ground features
were observed in comparison with satellite image and ortho photo. The cadastral maps were evaluated on the
basis of findings for effective land management and administration. The research tries to observe the
effectiveness of satellite imagery using GIS for land management and administration in Myanmar".....
Key Words: SLRD, GIS, Kwin Maps, Satellite Image, Ortho Ph

This photo set includes 18 still photographs selected from images taken by a community member from Bilin Township, Thaton District in January 2013. These photographs depict gold mining in Baw Paw Hta village and show village lands that were bought by the Mya Poo Company and subsequently damaged because of mining.

This Field Report includes information submitted by KHRG community members describing events which occurred in Hpapun District between January and December 2013. The report describes human rights violations, including sexual harassment, violent abuses, landmine incidents, forced labour, land confiscation, gold mining, arbitrary taxation, and theft and looting. In addition, fighting between Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) and Border Guard Force (BGF) soldiers resulted in injury and displacement of villagers.

This Situation Update describes events occurring in Bilin Township, Thaton District in October 2015, including updates on the 2015 general election, education, and development projects.

- Villages under the administration of the Burma/Myanmar government are able to vote in the 2015 general election. However, villages located in Karen National Union (KNU) controlled areas have not been adequately informed ahead of the election.

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in September 2011 by a villager describing events occurring in T'Nay Hsah Township, Pa'an District during September 2011. It details an incident in which a soldier from Tatmadaw Border Guard #1017 deliberately shot at villagers in a farm hut, resulting in the death of one civilian and injury to a six-year-old child.

This report includes a situation update submitted to KHRG in September 2012 by a community member describing events occurring in Nyaunglebin District between July and September 2012, including the imposition of taxes by Tatmadaw soldiers on villagers mining gold, use of a landmine by KNLA soldiers and the distribution of humanitarian aid by multiple international and local organizations. Specifically, the report describes Tatmadaw IB #57 imposing taxation over 40 villagers mining gold for their livelihoods.

Introduction: "1. Myanmar is a country where the various kinds of ethnic
nationalities are residing collectively and widely in 7 Regions, 7
States and Union Territory. The country is located in Southeast
Asia and is important geographically, economically and politically
in the region.
2. Moreover, Myanmar is a country that has rich natural resources and
environment, including valuable forests, fertile planes, natural gas
and mineral deposits, long coastline, mountain ranges, and rivers