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Myanmar has recently positioned itself as the world’s newest frontier market, while simultaneously undergoing transition to a post-war, neoliberal state. The new Myanmar government has put the country’s land and resources up for sale with the quick passing of market-friendly laws turning land into a commodity. Meanwhile, the Myanmar government has been engaging in a highly contentious national peace process, in an attempt to end one of the world's longest running civil wars. The Myanmar government has aggressively pushed for foreign investment in large-scale private agribusiness concessions through the introduction of a new supportive legal framework, with regional, and to a lesser extent, global corporations signing concession deals, some of which are meant for biofuel production. Meanwhile, REDD+, Readiness, and other similar forest conservation funds have been committed by IFIs and UN agencies, targeting (post-) war high-value conservation forest areas. Climate change mitigation projects and large-scale land deals can instigate conflicts over land and resources, but not just as separate processes occurring in discrete geographies. Working at the intersections of large-scale land acquisitions and climate change mitigation strategies viewed through a landscape perspective, this research project and analytic provides a lens through which to study complex interactions among land-based deals within and across socio-cultural, ecological, conflict and institutional arenas. The Myanmar country case study clearly demonstrates the dynamic interplay of, and the social and ecological spill-over effects from, multiple layers of competing land conflicts — in this case, land grabs and climate change mitigation strategies. These conflicts are firmly embedded in the historical processes, institutional agendas, and environmental particularities in which they take place.
