The first year of the 2004-2009 Strategic Plan saw much greater and systematic efforts on regional and international partnerships, including collaboration with national government and non-governmental institutions. At the same time, organizational expansion required some restructuring and more robust planning and management systems. RECOFTC's role as a non-partisan facilitator of improved community forestry has been enhanced with a strong focus on learning processes to strengthen the capacity of stakeholders.

The SPDC is continuing its attacks on Karen hill villages throughout northern Karen State, trying to entirely depopulate the northern hills. SPDC columns have regrouped and resupplied and are now launching attacks into hill regions not previously reached by the offensive.

This paper presents the preliminary findings of a study on land conflicts between refugees and host communities in southwestern Uganda and their impact on refugee women’s livelihoods. Uganda has a long history of hosting refugees that dates back to the 1940s, when it hosted Polish refugees; Rwandese and Sudanese in the 1950s (Holborn 1975:1213-1225).

The Kenya Land Alliance (KLA) welcomes the new Forest Act 2005 for placing forest resources at the core of sustaining both the local and national economies. Indeed locally forests are a source of food, fodder, wood fuel, construction materials, spiritual and cultural nourishment and traditional medicines among others. The Act, beyond highlighting the environmental and ecological functions of the forest sector, affirmsthe importance of our forest cover as one of the country’s major national assets, and this underscores the need to entrench it.

With the annual monsoon rains now falling over Karen State, the SPDC’s military offensive
against civilian villagers in northern Karen State would normally be drawing to a close.
However, quite the opposite is happening. The resumption of SPDC Army attacks on
villages and the increased patrols in Toungoo District shows that the offensive is far from
over. Thousands more landmines have been reportedly deployed across Toungoo District to
isolate certain parts of the district and restrict villagers’ movements. An analysis of SPDC

...SPDC troops in northern Papun district continue to escalate their attacks, shooting villagers, burning villages and destroying ricefields. Undefended villages in far northern Papun district are now being shelled with powerful 120mm mortars. Three battalions from Toungoo district have rounded up hundreds of villagers as porters and are detaining their families in schools in case they're needed; this column is now heading south with its porters, apparently intending to trap displaced villagers in a pincer between themselves and the troops coming north from Papun district.

The illegal and irregular allocations of public land as chronicled in the Ndungu Report amount to a rip-off that dwarfs the Goldenberg and Anglo-Leasing scandals. Our analysis in this first issue in the series covers Karura, Ngong Road and Kiptagich forests and suggests a loss of public resources in excess of Ksh.18.4 billion. The Ndungu Report covers ten other forests as well as other public land, ranging from road reserves to cemeteries to public toilets and even State House land. As we cover these in future issues of the series, the cumulative loss will certainly be astounding.

Mozambique is one of the countries in Africa receiving significant amounts of development assistance. It owes this privileged position to many factors. First of all, after a protracted civil war which lasted from the late seventies to the early nineties, Mozambique’s then Marxist oriented government and the “right-wing” Renamo rebels signed a peace agreement which has since held.

In most countries in the region, local communities' use of forest resources is strictly regulated. The strategy of managing forests through stringent protection and regulation has in fact not been very successful in protecting forests in Asia, and has resulted in conflicts between enforcement officers and communities. New strategies are required that acknowledge the high costs and conflicts in classical protected area management approaches and look at complementary strategies for achieving conservation by working with, rather than against, local communities.

Ending the Waiting Game: Strategies for Responding to Internally Displaced People in Burma" argues that the crisis in Burma has reached a point where displaced people and other vulnerable populations simply cannot wait any longer for outside assistance, including health services, education, food production and building the capacity of civil society organizations in the country. U.S. sanctions against Burma's military regime currently prevent the provision of significant humanitarian aid."...Table of Contents
Executive Summary i
Introduction 1

A savage onslaught by the Burmese army in Karen State has displaced thousands and seriously undermined any government talk‑ about democratic reform...

"Up to four families squash into half-finished bamboo structures of three or four rooms built into the side of a mountain. Those on the other side of the mountain still wait for suitable shelter.

As thousands of displaced Karen fill temporary shelters along the Salween River in Burma, their plight has yet to mobilize the international community...

"A large boat churns through the coffee-colored waters of the Salween River that separates Burma from Thailand. Sitting among plastic wrapped bundles of mosquito nets, tins of sardines, boxes of iron nails, plastic buckets, hammers and floor mats, a small chunky man stares at the fast-gathering rain clouds smothering the hot sun.