- Amid decades-long armed conflict with Myanmar’s central government, Indigenous Karen organizations and leaders are mapping and documenting their ancestral lands in a self-determination effort — without seeking government approval.
- Locals receive land title certificates that provide security to villagers, giving a sense of inheritance rights and protection against land-grabs from the government, megaprojects and extractive industries.
- They use geographic information systems (GIS), computer tools and systems to interpret, document and agree on lands and forest data.
- Participatory methods with local communities and supporting organizations have been used to map more than 3.5 million hectares (8.6 million acres) of land, which includes reserved forests and wildlife sanctuaries.
Community land for most Indigenous Karen people in Myanmar is not subject to ownership — it is rather a source of their faith, a divine creator of which the Karen are solely the custodians.
Despite this belief, Karen communities living in the southern Kayin state (or Kawthoolei, as Karen nationalists call it) have taken part in a land registration effort for more than a decade now. Karen leaders and activists map out ancestral lands in seven districts of the state, register them in a database and provide locals with their own land title certificates — all without asking the central government.
It was the aftermath of frequent violent attacks that killed and displaced many people from their lands that led to the creation of this registration policy, says P’doh Saw Lay Say, the Karen head of the Kawthoolei Agriculture Department (KAD), a unit under the main political group of the Karen people, the Karen National Union (KNU). It emerged as a desire to strengthen what outsiders recognize as their lands and protect the ecosystems in this Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot that they have stewarded for generations.
To worry about the land and stress over their legal relationship with it is the condition of the Karen people today.
Amid the decades-long armed conflict between the military wing of the KNU and the government’s military regime over self-determination and the latest civil war following the 2021 coup, the lands and forests of Kayin state not only stand as a source of food and biodiversity. They also provide shelter to Karen people from deadly aerial attacks. More than 460 civilians, mostly children, have lost their lives due to the regime’s repeated air strikes, according to a statement by the National Unity Government, a group that calls itself the legitimate government and opposes military rule.
“With data and community-issued land certificates for the local landowners, this policy would further help communities establish their autonomy to better monitor, manage and protect the community lands that have been under constant threat,” Lay Say, who is also a member of the Kawthoolei Central Land Committee (KCLC) tells Mongabay. The KCLC is the body that registers customary communal lands and provides the certificates to Karen people.
The Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), an environmental organization, helped draft this land policy in 2012 and collaborated with the KNU to demarcate agricultural plots and community forests. With the technical support of the Cadasta Foundation starting in 2017, they mapped and documented the lands of the community across seven districts using computer geographic information systems (GIS). Karen leaders and communities use the computer tools and systems to interpret, document and agree on lands and forest data.
Over the last decade, the entities have demarcated 326 kaws (ancestral customary lands), covering an area of 842,820 hectares (more than 2 million acres), including 107 reserved forests, 18 wildlife sanctuaries, 204 community forests and four herbal medicine forests. This covers a total forest area of 2,719,172 hectares (more than 6.7 million acres).
For generations, Karen people have shared a sacred relationship with their lands, waters and forests. Despite legally owning the land, sources say they still see themselves in a reciprocal relationship with it; as they take care of the land, their foods, culture and livelihoods are secured.
“We don’t see our lands and forests as commodities, we still see ourselves as their custodians and are assigned to steward them. We have rules and regulations that ethically and legally bind us,” says Lay Say.
A step toward autonomy?
The land registration policy is part of a desire for decentralized autonomy by various ethnic groups in the country that witnessed a lack of law and order for decades during waves of political conflict following independence. Beginning in 1948 until now, the central Burmese government has exercised laws that state all natural resources within Burma belong to the government, making civilians, including the Karen farmers, grow wary of their authority. They fear and face the reality of losing access to lands for company and state megaprojects, such as the proposed Hatgyi dam in Kayin state, or to mining for gold and other minerals.
They now tie their hopes to the KNU and its governance to have better access to their natural resources and protect their land use. However, even in this case, villagers have lost their lands after the KNU allocated them to gold mining sites.
These ancestral territories, also known as kaw, are a repository for natural resources and rich biodiversity. In the Salween Peace Park, a Karen-led protected area in the state, villagers reside within teak and bamboo forests home to tigers (Panthera tigris), Sunda pangolins (Manis javanica), clouded leopards (Neofelis nebulosa) and several species of bears. The Salween River, Asia’s longest free-flowing river, runs through the park.
Demarcating these rich lands during continual air attacks and bombing was not an easy task.
“When the military attacked by air and fired artillery, people had to flee to save their lives. This disrupted our effort to go from one village to another to help people with land demarcation, survey and registration,” said Paul Sein Twa, executive director of KESAN.
The use of land mines, restricted movements in military-occupied areas and road blockages also made it difficult to travel in some areas.
These post-coup conditions and new wave of “lawlessness” in the country have pushed Karen refugees to clear patches of forest in the Salween Peace Park to cultivate crops to feed their families. They also clear it to obtain timber and bamboo with which to construct shelters while they await a safe time to return home.
“They are living widely dispersed throughout the forest, many thousands of people, so you can imagine how much of those resources they will need,” Sein Twa told Mongabay in 2023.
Although this community land registration process is being done without state recognition, Sein Twa says the Burmese government has not yet impeded the land registration process. “We have so far not received any negative response from the government, not even before the military coup. The members of Parliament have instead expressed that they would like to study land administration and governance that is led by the KNU,” Sein Twa tells Mongabay.
But, if the government does not recognize the land registration policy, Sein Twa says they will simply resist and continue fighting for their land rights.
“When we talk about “fighting”, we mean it peacefully through political dialogue,” he explains. “But if one uses militant means we’ll defend. It is the Myanmar army that always invades and plunders our natural resources. That’s why we took arms in defense of our territorial rights.”
According to Sein Twa, each region in the country is setting out its own governance systems because the central government is on the verge of collapse.
“Other ethnic groups, including the Mon people, also want to have their lands registered under the KNU to secure their ancestral lands for the next generation,” he tells Mongabay.
Tech-based mapping for improved land rights and conservation
Previously, the KNU conducted the land registration manually. It wasn’t until 2017 that the Cadasta Foundation joined the effort to help document lands and forest data using GIS.
“By leveraging Cadasta’s technology, the land documentation process gains efficiency and reliability, ensuring that land ownership data is accurately recorded and securely stored for future reference and analysis,” David Palomino, partner support specialist at Cadasta Foundation, tells Mongabay.
Because these mapping technologies have helped communities employ instant mapping with fewer resources, it has also enhanced community conservation efforts, says Sein Twa.
Traditional knowledge about territories has been integrated with the GIS software, maps, data analysis and storytelling. Palomino says he believes these land title certificates provide security to villagers, ensuring inheritance rights and protection against land-grabs from logging and extractive industries.
“Participatory methods were employed to map more than 3.5 million hectares [8.6 million acres] of land. By addressing the digital divide, the collaboration ensures that even remote communities with limited internet access can effectively leverage technology to protect their land and resources,” Palomino says.
To document their ancestral lands, the Karen locals have mapped and collected data directly from the field using their phones, later analyzing and interpreting these data in community groups and agreeing on boundaries to make the process effective and prevent disputes.
“We have hundreds of communities coming together [in meetings], so using GIS technology helped cover a wider area in a shorter period, further encouraging collective planning and decision-making regarding conservation of the territories,” Sein Twa tells Mongabay.
The initiative not only aims to demarcate individual lands, but also to establish a framework for the governance of forest and parcel of lands.
“Through the integration of dashboards, web maps, web applications and the innovative use of story maps, they are not only managing their territories but also leveraging these tools for advocacy purposes, effectively amplifying their voices and showcasing the significance of their land rights and stewardship efforts,” Palomino says.
The registration effort also acknowledges the cultural significance of important Indigenous sites and heritage and avoids the use of machinery that could potentially disrupt natural habitats.
Central government officials were unavailable for comment or did not respond to Mongabay’s emails.
Banner image: Some of the villagers with their land title certificates. Image courtesy of KESAN.
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Correction (27 February 2024): KESAN did not initiate the land policy in 2012, but rather helped draft its parameters. Mongabay regrets the error.
