Land

Overview

Land is life for local grass roots people around the world including in Myanmar and Kayah State. Traditionally, most of the people from Kayah State’s lives rely on their land. Accordingly, their customary land use practices are very strong and represent how important the connection between their lives and their land is. Land brings the people to unite, to understand each other, to maintain their territory, maintain their culture and also benefits them in many other ways.

Problem

The customary land practices of indigenous peoples are not recognized and protected by the land laws and this means that indigenous people are losing their rights to maintain their ancestral land, forests, historical land, sacred land and customary land use practices. Furthermore, the current National Land Use Policy does not fully complement indigenous people’s actual situation. This creates further land problems especially in ethnic regions. If we cannot amend the current laws and policies, indigenous people will continue to lose their fundamental rights to maintain their land and natural resources in the future.

Solution

Kayah Earthrights Action Network (KEAN) is empowering communities to understand the laws and policies that are not sufficient to protect their land and supporting communities to divide the pros and cons of land law and policy. KEAN is also organizing communities so they can be involved in the amending and adopting processes for new land law that can reflect the indigenous people’s customary land practices. Moreover, KEAN is developing indigenous people’s customary land use management plans in Kayah (Karenni) state so that the government’s land law can reflect their customary land use management plans and can also be in line with international standards.