ABSTRACT
Made more urgent by the recent global financial crisis and by ever-increasing concerns over food and energy security, the acquisition or leasing of foreign land has become central to the national investment policies of many nations. Looking to meet current and future food, energy and water needs that are not easily met by domestic resources, land grabbing nationally and internationally is on the rise. Although the ‘grabbing’ of land and its resources from vulnerable stakeholders and the corresponding results are not a new occurrence, the scale of land grabs that are now possible and that are occurring is larger than in the past. The players have also changed. National and foreign governments, as well as national and multinational/international companies, are involved in current global land grabs. Media, non-governmental organisations, intergovernmental organisations and members of academia have been witness to this growing phenomenon. The study of land grabbing focuses on inequitable changes of land tenure and the players and elements that have led to these changes. In Myanmar, the disenfranchised have had little recourse to resist the changes resulting from land grabs, until recently. Through the example of the most publicised of the recent land grabs, the Monywa Letpadaung Copper Mine case, this chapter explores the mechanisms that are enabling land grabbing and displacement in reforming Myanmar, as well as the tools of resistance that are now being used by those affected.
