Conceptualising and Articulating the Drivers of Deforestation in Myanmar.

CONCEPTUALISING AND ARTICULATING THE DRIVERS OF DEFORESTATION IN THE NEW MYANMAR (2015–2018).

The project intends to develop a conceptual framework for Myanmar that distinguishes and identifies the various stakeholders, resources, and their relationships set within the dynamic policy landscape. Moreover, the project intends to develop a holistic, multi-disciplinary perspective on the emerging trends in Myanmar that are likely to have an impact on the forest-agriculture interface. The two specific objectives of the project are:

1. To develop a qualitative conceptual framework that identifies, describes, and links key stakeholders that influence forest conservation, agriculture, and natural resource extraction in Myanmar, and embeds those relationships within a socio-economic and policy context. The framework should describe the stakeholders, agents, and contextual factors that will later inform scenario analysis for a spatially-explicit, top-down, rent-based agriculture-forest model.
2. To conduct a horizon scan that identifies the highest priority threats and opportunities that Myanmar’s increased international engagement will have for forest conservation. This will lead to novel, interdisciplinary insights on how Myanmar’s new international engagement may lead to new physical outcomes, such as agricultural intensification, deforestation, or agroindustrial expansion.