Land Tenure Center Newsletter
Number 79, Spring 2000, p. 10
Land is the major source of wealth and power and has been the focus of successive ruling bodies in Burma from British colonial rulers, to independent/democratic government, to various guises of military regime.
Colonial rulers usually ignored the customary use of land and simply acquired land deemed "useful" for their development purposes. When Burma gained independence, there was a similar process by the state of taking land thought to be useful for commercial or infrastructure projects, ignoring the customary system of land use.
Yet the most significant land problems in Burma remain those associated with landlessness, rural poverty, and inequality of access to resources. A framework to ensure the sustainable development of land is needed to address social, legal, economic, and technical dimensions of land management.
Myo Nyunt discussed the centrality of land to life in Burma at a special LTC Brownbag Seminar. In the forthcoming LTC Tenure Brief, "Control of Land and Life in Burma," Nancy Hudson-Rodd and Nyunt summarize how land is used and who controls the use of land in Burma.
The authors are with the School of International, Cultural, and Community Studies, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia. They can be reached at: n.hudson_rodd@cowan.edu.au, and m.nyunt@cowan.edu.au.
Copyright © 2000 by Land Tenure Center and Board of Regents, University of Wisconsin. All rights reserved.
Readers may make verbatim copies of this document for noncommercial purposes by any means, provided that this copyright notice appears on all such copies.
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