2010 Volume 56 Issue 1 Pages 59-68
It has been over 150 years since the plantation forests are established by using the taungya system of Myanmar origin. Soon after its emergence, the system was widely introduced into Asia, Africa, and Latin America due to its efficiency. However, researchers view the connection between Forest Departments of the various countries that apply taungya system and the rural people who take part in taungya system as top-down approach. However, this paper makes an approach to clarify that taungya system is a form of decentralization. While doing so, it tries to connect decentralization regarding to three different types of forest plantations with the forest occupants, through plantation participants. It claims that private owners and communities now have the decentralization and devolution rights in forest plantation establishment, and the plantation participants at State-owned plantations also have some form of decentralization rights. However, it admits the experience of negative human impacts in State-owned plantation areas. For this reason, an impact analysis is carried out to examine the effects of decentralization so that more up-to-date measures can be identified. Findings from the TwoStep cluster analysis reveal that the present decentralization pattern of forest plantations in Myanmar has no long term sustainable effect on the forest occupants. Especially the people living in permanent villages without taungya plot allocation seemed to be the most vulnerable in socio-economic terms.
