Myanmar Forest Programme

We aim for a situation where civil society is influencing policies and monitors enforcement to ensure that natural resources are used sustainably; and indigenous people and local communites have increased governance rights over those resources, all together underpinning a green economy approach that leads to increased human wellbeing both in programme intervention areas and in Myanmar in general. Currently Myanmar is experiencing a rapid but unequal and resource-dependent growth leading to a degradation of natural resources, harming the large minority of indigenous people depending on these forest and freshwater resources. The ethnic minorities do not benefit from the economic development but bear the consequences of the environmental degradation of the ecosystems they depend on. The programme will satisfy the development needs of the region in terms of infrastructure, land allocation for the private sector, land allocation for community needs as well as achieving ecological integrity and minimizing conflicts and damages to more vulnerable stakeholders.