Divers Paths to Justice - English - Forest Peoples Programme

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Divers Paths to Justice: Legal pluralism and the rights of indigenous peoples inSoutheast Asiadegree of food security decreases. Communities are sometimes able to resistor adapt to this by expanding their wet rice paddy fields, changing theiroccupations by opening their villages for tourism, producing handicrafts forsale, taking on labouring work or using their land to produce cash crops.Traditionally, the management of land use in the highlands has beenorganised under a system of communal rights 11 which in principle hasmeant that rights for land use (usufruct) rest with those who actually use theland. Although this may seem to resemble a type of family land ownership,when the land is not in use, it returns to the system of communal rights andis rotated so that other members of the community may use it. Therefore,the management of Rotational Farming depends on a complex mixture ofprivate and communal rights. 12However, after the establishment of the Thai nation State, State powerexpanded, bringing communities which had lived independently under thecontrol of central government and causing these communities to lose theirtraditional systems of land management 13 due to policies which designatedparts of the highlands as conservation areas without taking into accounttraditional communal land management. In most cases, communities hadsettled in these areas of the highlands long before the State designated themas conservation areas.This created many problems as the conservation areas overlapped with areasin which communities had traditionally used the land. 14 Conflict betweenthe State and local people increased in frequency and violence as Stategovernment agencies centralised power to fully manage natural resources,thereby ignoring the complexity and diversity of traditional, local resourcemanagement, overlooking traditional knowledge and customary rights ofindigenous peoples and denying communities the right to participate inthese processes. State laws give priority to a system of private landownership, but do not recognise the customary laws of indigenous peoples11 Anan 198712 Anan et al 199213 Hirsch 1990:156-6614 Chalardchai 1993; Chupinit 1991145
Divers Paths to Justice: Legal pluralism and the rights of indigenous peoples inSoutheast Asiaon rights for communal land use (usufruct). 15 All of the State’s forest andenvironmental laws diminish the rights of people in local communities, byclaiming the State’s absolute right to control and manage naturalresources. 16This conflict between State and customary law is evident in the case of landmanagement and rotational farming for Karen communities because theState only recognises individual land rights, while Karen communitiestraditional land rights are based on rights for land use (usufruct) in whichland rights belong to the family/clan who themselves determine the patternof land management. The State’s policy of private land ownership whichequates land management with private ownership creates problems forcommunities, like the Karen, who use a communal land rights system. 17 TheState’s system of land rights puts pressure on indigenous peoples bylimiting their rights to land use and cannot coexist with or allow for thesystem of Rotational Farming which requires enough land to leave fallowareas.Moreover, the State’s current conservation forest policy involves a projectof tree planting in areas which overlap land used by indigenous peoples,creating conflict between the forestry department and local villagers. Thistree planting project reduces the land available for use by indigenouspeoples and so the land that is left for them to cultivate remains small andthe period of fallow is reduced, decreasing the fertility of the soil andincreasing soil erosion which in turn leads to food shortages.This increases the likelihood that local people will use their land repeatedlyover shorter periods of time, which ultimately leaves them with little optionother than planting cash mono-crops which require the purchase and use offertilisers and pesticides. The ensuing reduction in rice productivity anddiversity of planted crops increasingly forces people to move out of theircommunities to work elsewhere in order to survive. 18 It is clear that such15 Anan 199616 ibid.17 ibid.18 Kerkasem K & B 1994; Kwanchewan 1996146
Page 2 and 3:
Divers Paths to Justice: Legal plur
Page 4 and 5:
Page 6 and 7:
Page 8 and 9:
Page 10 and 11:
Page 12 and 13:
Page 14 and 15:
Page 16 and 17:
Page 18 and 19:
Page 20:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96: Divers Paths to Justice: Legal plur
Page 145: Divers Paths to Justice: Legal plur
show all

Divers Paths to Justice - English - Forest Peoples Programme

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?