Abstract
ABSTRACT Tropical forest landscapes are undergoing vast transformations. Myanmar was long an exception to this trend – until recent policy reforms put economic development at the forefront. Under ambiguous land rights, commercial agriculture has spread rapidly, causing an unprecedented loss of biodiversity-rich forest. In south-eastern Myanmar, where land tenure is highly contested due to several decades of conflict, scientific evidence on these complex social-ecological processes is lacking. In the absence of past satellite data, we applied a participatory mapping approach and co-produced annual land use information with local land users between 1990 and 2017 for two case study landscapes. Results show that both landscapes have undergone a land use regime shift from small-scale farmers’ shifting cultivation to plantations of rubber, betel nut, cashew, and oil palm. These changes are likely to have long-term impacts on land users’ livelihoods and the environment. We call for a reconsideration of land governance arrangements and concerted land use planning that respects the rights of local land users and strengthens their role as environmental stewards. Applied with careful facilitation, participatory mapping could be an important tool to engage communities in the highly challenging process of transforming land governance to achieve more sustainable outcomes in this post-conflict context.
Highlights
Many forest frontier landscapes in the tropics have recently undergone wide-ranging transformations from subsistence farming to cash crop production (Curtis et al 2018)
We present our findings regarding the evolution of the six main land uses in the Ein Da Rar Zar and Hein Ze case study landscapes between 1990 and 2017 (Figure 2, Table 2) and interpret them using information from the stakeholder interviews
Results from the stakeholder interviews showed that the massive decline in shifting cultivation in the case study landscapes over the last 27 years is explained by a combination of different factors
Summary
Many forest frontier landscapes in the tropics have recently undergone wide-ranging transformations from subsistence farming to cash crop production (Curtis et al 2018). Local land use changes are increasingly being triggered by the demands and strategies of actors at multiple levels of governance – a phenomenon that land system scientists termed ‘telecoupling’ (Liu et al 2013; Eakin et al 2014) This is the case in South-East Asia, where the main driver of deforestation has shifted from expansion of agricultural land by smallholders through shifting cultivation to the establishment of large-scale commercial plantations of rubber, oil palm, and other commodity crops (Rudel et al 2009; Sayer et al 2012; Fox and Castella 2013). Many of the (sometimes very large) oil palm concession areas
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
