| 1. |
- Bastos Lima, Mairon G., et al.
(author)
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Neglect paves the way for dispossession: The politics of “last frontiers” in Brazil and Myanmar
- 2021
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In: World Development. - : Elsevier BV. - 0305-750X .- 1873-5991. ; 148
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- A convergence of factors creates a worrisome contemporary pattern of resource dispossession of local populations in developing countries. Growing market demand for commodities, states’ interest in expanding their fiscally fertile territories, and environmental conservation pressures have promoted resource frontiers, where locals all too frequently lose access to land, water and livelihoods. To add momentum and legitimize outsiders’ agendas, such locations are sometimes framed as “last frontiers” – the final places of possibility. While various forms of resource “grabbing” have gained increased attention, we argue that a crucial dimension of frontier dynamics – neglect and its role in facilitating dispossession – warrants further study as it tends to be overlooked. Drawing on the frontiers and political ecology literature, this article analyzes how neglect by state authorities, markets, and environmental organizations paves the way for dispossession in those landscapes. We compare two cases: the Matopiba soy frontier in the savannas of Brazil's Cerrado and the Chin Hills of western Myanmar. Our results show how neglect is critical to imaginatively frame regions as “empty” places of possibility, excluding local actors economically from development and politically from governance initiatives. We argue that neglect not only precedes but is an enduring feature of resource frontiers, and identify four consecutive phases: (I) pre-frontier abandonment, (II) selective support to outsiders, (III) overlooked harms to communities, and (IV) socially exclusive sustainability agendas. As environmental concerns gain increasing global salience, Phase I sometimes leaps to Phase IV as international actors pounce to control what they regard as “last frontiers” for conservation. We conclude that external actors’ inaction enables local communities’ dispossession as much as their actions. This raises critical policy and scholarly questions about actors' responsibility and accountability, not only for harms done but also for systematically failing to heed local actors’ aspirations and needs.
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| 2. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987, et al.
(author)
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Access mapping highlights risks from land reform in upland Myanmar
- 2021
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In: Journal of Land Use Science. - 1747-4248 .- 1747-423X. ; 16:1, s. 34-54
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Secure land access is vital for Myanmar's upland households, who rely on crops and forests to meet their subsistence needs. But recent land reforms threaten to undermine customary tenure and land-use practices in Myanmar. This paper combines income accounting methods with access theory to assess how new legislation may affect four Chin communities in the country's north-west. Our assessment of 94 households' land-access mechanisms and economic benefits from different types of land reveals existing land-access inequalities among Chin households and demonstrates communities' continued dependence on environmental resources, especially those from swidden fields, home gardens and forests. A majority of households would lose all of their land-derived income, if they were denied access to communities' customarily governed land, e.g., under the Vacant, Fallow and Virgin Land Management Law. Policy stakeholders should therefore intervene, to alleviate land-access inequalities among Chin households and to direct Myanmar's land-system dynamics onto more just development trajectories.
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| 3. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987
(author)
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Addressing climate vulnerability and farming system challenges with local agroecological knowledge
- 2018
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Landslides and floods in the aftermath of extreme weather events are already a challenging reality for rural communities in northern Chin State and Sagaing Region and will likely be more common in the future – in effect of global climate change. Many rural communities in Myanmar were devastated by the impacts of extreme weather events during the 2015 monsoon season. These events caused the loss of lives, and destruction of villages, rural infrastructure and croplands of small scale farmers. Already poor and food insecure households were thus thrown into crisis. Rural development actors work to address these challenges; supporting communities to recover from natural disaster impacts, reduce vulnerabilities and thus build long-term resilience to climate change. But to design successful development interventions, initiatives require detailed insight into the realities of rural livelihoods and farming conditions in target communities. Targeted project activities need to build on detailed knowledge about local social, economic and environmental contexts, climate vulnerabilities, and farming system challenges. Yet, such knowledge is not often readily available to development actors in Myanmar. Instead, organisations have to find rigorous and efficient approaches to generate the required information themselves. This brief presents such an approach, and insights from a research collaboration between Ar Yone Oo – Social Development Association (Myanmar) and Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden). These organisations partnered in 2017, to document lessons from Ar Yone Oo’s STRONG project activities for disaster affected communities in northern Chin State and western Sagaing Region [3]. The initiative also conducted participatory research, to assess climate vulnerabilities and farming system challenges that project beneficiaries encounter. Insights from this collaboration can inform inter-organisational learning and knowledge sharing for rural development and agroecological initiatives in Myanmar, and across the region.
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| 4. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987
(author)
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Agroecology for resilient and sustainable livelihoods of natural disaster affected communities in Myanmar. Lessons from the STRONG project approach to farmer field schools (FFS) in Chin State and Sagaing Region.
- 2018
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Reports (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Rural people in South-East-Asia have, for centuries, adapted their livelihoods to cope with natural disaster risks. But climate change and transitions from traditional to industrial modes of farming have changed the vulnerabilities of these people and their communities. Farm reliant households, in Myanmar and across the region, are increasingly exposed to market forces and disruptive impacts of extreme weather events. New approaches to rural development, which enable communities to build resilient and sustainable livelihoods are therefore needed. The STRONG project’s approach to farmer field schools (FFS), promoting agroecological practices for poor, rural households in western Myanmar, is an example of such approaches. In 2016, Ar Yone Oo – Social Development Association and Welthungerhilfe partnered to initiate the STRONG project – in response to severe landslide and flooding events that devastated rural communities in Myanmar during the 2015 Monsoon season. The project supports disaster affected households to recover their livelihoods and build long-term resilience, through a portfolio of complementary disaster risk reduction and rural development interventions. This brief (i) provides an introduction to the STRONG project approach to adult learning in FFS, (ii) documents agroecological practices that the initiative promotes in target communities and (iii) presents key insight from the STRONG project for inter-organisational learning and knowledge exchange. The presentation builds on results of a collaboration between Ar Yone Oo (Myanmar) and Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), formed to document lessons from the STRONG project implementation process, and assess project beneficiaries’ experiences with promoted agroecological practices.
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| 5. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987, et al.
(author)
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Cyclone Komen’s aftermath: Local knowledge shows how poverty and inequalities fuel climate risk in western Myanmar
- 2021
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In: Regional Environmental Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1436-378X .- 1436-3798. ; 21:4
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Cyclones and other extreme events exert increasing pressure on South-East Asia’s societies and put smallholder farmers at risk. Here, we draw on participatory causal-diagramming workshops, interviews and survey data, to provide contextually grounded knowledge about rural communities’ exposure and vulnerability to climate-related hazards in western Myanmar. By tracing how the 2015 cyclone Komen led to a prolonged humanitarian disaster, we show that climate-related risks in this area arise from the complex interplay of households’ pre-existing vulnerabilities, persistent farming challenges, extensive disasters and cascading effects, which disparately affect lowland and upland communities. The different household strata’s dissimilar vulnerabilities vis-à-vis Komen’s impacts were rooted in the distinct exposure of their production systems to landslides and floods. Pre-existing land-access barriers, land-degradation processes, climatic stressors, agricultural pests and diseases, and chronic lack of assets and food insecurity further mediated households’ vulnerability. Relief interventions did not stop the disaster’s escalation, although this could have been achieved with early technical and material assistance to address the cyclone’s impacts on farmers’ land. Targeted aid for households facing imminent food insecurity or debt crisis could have lessened engagement in precarious coping strategies and distress migration. A diversification of households’ livelihood and land-use practices and increased redundancies of critical assets and infrastructure could help to mitigate future cyclone-triggered disasters. By demonstrating the strengths of local knowledge approaches in untangling the complex interplay of extreme events with households’ everyday vulnerabilities and agricultural land-use practices, we make a case for more contextually grounded disaster risk and climate adaptation research.
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| 6. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987
(author)
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Remittances, Access & Adaptation: Options to Secure Rural Livelihoods in Morocco and Myanmar
- 2020
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Doctoral thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- State leaders have adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and pledged to leave no one behind. This thesis advances knowledge for attaining these goals, through systems thinking and place-based research in the context of climate and land-change processes in Morocco and Myanmar. It (i) advances empirical knowledge about the dynamics that shape the livelihoods of rural people, (ii) assesses what puts them at risk, and (iii) discusses how they could become more secure. It proposes a conceptual framework for studying frontier dynamics through the lens of neglect and demonstrates the utility of local knowledge methods in climate adaptation research. Papers I and II assess rural peoples’ land-dependence, livelihood strategies and associated risks, in the Chin Hills of western Myanmar. They combine cross-sectional household survey data, clustering techniques and access theory, showing that people in Chin State meet much of their needs through farming and products from forests and trees. Households who receive remittances or wages tend to fare better economically yet face additional risks from their exposure to labour markets. Discrepancies between Myanmar’s land-sector laws and communities’ customary practices imply that many households stand to lose all their land-derived income. Lacking assets, inequalities and local land-change dynamics limit some households’ land-access too. Papers III and IV draw on local knowledge research, in the latter combined with household survey data. The former captures local system dynamics and peoples’ disaster experiences to understand how climate-related livelihood risks arise. It argues that interlinked cascading effects, farming challenges and pre-existing vulnerabilities led to escalating disasters when Cyclone Komen crossed western Myanmar. The latter explores tree-based adaptation options to diversify rural livelihoods in northern Morocco. It shows that agroforestry practices are already integral to the regions’ smallholder production systems. Yet, complex barriers need overcoming, for further farm trees to be planted and maintained. Paper V draws on frontiers literature, conceptual thinking and fieldwork for Papers I, II and III to propose a novel framework for studying frontier dynamics. It shows how the workings of neglect render Chin State’s rural people vulnerable to dispossession. All papers argue for enhanced efforts to secure rural livelihoods in Morocco and Myanmar.
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| 7. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987
(author)
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Rural Livelihood Options for "a better and more sustainable future". Local perspectives from Myanmar and Morocco
- 2018
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In 2015, state leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to address global inequalities and respond to heightened concern about challenges, arising from contemporary global change. This thesis contributes to addressing these challenges, by extending the knowledge base that rural development stakeholders can draw on to co-construct viable livelihood options for vulnerable rural people. Paper I does so on the basis of cross-sectional household survey data and clustering techniques, applied to explore the differentiated livelihood strategies of rural people in Myanmar. Results of this study show that households engaged in six relatively distinct livelihood strategies, which differed in terms of their relative reliance on land-based vis-à-vis other income generation activities and their income poverty implications. These findings imply differentiated vulnerabilities of rural households, e.g. to climate change, shifting land-governance regimes and labour market forces. Paper II is based on local knowledge research, exploring the opportunity space for a tree-based adaptation of livelihoods and farming systems in Morocco’s drylands. Results of this study show that respondents already maintain a diversity of trees on their farms, but water scarcity, the low profitability of production systems and social conflicts constitute critical barriers to an agroforestry-based climate adaptation. Paper II further demonstrates the utility of local knowledge in climate adaptation research, showing that local knowledge methods facilitate inquiry into the contextual variability of livelihood contexts, technology-adoption barriers and extension priorities that farmers perceive. Brought together, both papers contribute to realising the vision of “a better and more sustainable future” for rural people.
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| 8. |
- Kmoch, Laura, 1987, et al.
(author)
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Upland Livelihoods between Local Land and Global Labour Market Dependencies: Evidence from Northern Chin State, Myanmar
- 2018
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In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 10:10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Livelihoods and agrarian change processes across upland South-East Asia have been explored for decades. Yet, knowledge gaps remain about contemporary livelihood strategies and land dependence in areas previously inaccessible to academic research, such as in upland Myanmar. Moreover, new strands of inquiry arise with continued globalisation, e.g., into the effects of remittances and labour migration on household incomes and livelihoods in distant upland areas. This study applied clustering techniques to income accounts of 94 households from northern Chin State, Myanmar to: (i) Identify households’ livelihood strategies; (ii) assess their dependence on access to land and natural resources; and (iii) compare absolute and relative incomes across strategies. We show that households engaged in six relatively distinct livelihood strategies: Relying primarily on own farming activities; making a living off the land with mixed income from agriculture and forest resources; engaging in wage employment; living from remittances; practicing non-forest tree husbandry; or engaging in self-employed business activities. We found significant income inequalities across clusters, with households engaging in remittance and wage-oriented livelihood strategies realizing higher incomes than those primarily involved in land-based activities. Our findings point to differentiated vulnerabilities associated with the identified livelihood strategies—to climate risks, shifting land-governance regimes and labour market forces.
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| 9. |
- Pagella, Tim, et al.
(author)
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Using Local Agroecological Knowledge in Climate Change Adaptation: A Study of Tree-Based Options in Northern Morocco
- 2018
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In: Sustainability. - : MDPI AG. - 2071-1050. ; 10:10
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Communities in northern Morocco are vulnerable to increasing water scarcity and food insecurity. Context specific adaptation options thus need to be identified to sustain livelihoods and agroecosystems in this region, and increase the resilience of vulnerable smallholders, and their farming systems, to undesired effects of social-ecological change. This study took a knowledge-based systems approach to explore whether and how tree-based (i.e., agroforestry) options could contribute to meeting these adaptation needs. We analysed local agroecological knowledge of smallholders from the Mè knes–Tafilalet region, to (i) characterise existing farming systems at local landscape scale; (ii) identify possible niches for farm-trees within these systems; and (iii) explore locally perceived barriers to tree-based diversification. An iterative cycle of qualitative interviews, with a purposefully selected sample of 32 farmers, revealed that socio-economic constraints and agroecological conditions in the area differed markedly along a relatively short altitudinal gradient. Agroforestry practices were already integral to all farming systems. Yet, many were at risk of degradation, as water scarcity, low profitability of production systems and uncontrolled grazing constituted critical barriers to the maintenance and diversification of farm-trees. We demonstrate the discriminatory power of local knowledge, to characterise farming conditions at the local landscape scale; and unveil adoption barriers and options for tree-based diversification in northern Morocco.
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