Search results

"Ottoman-Southeast Asian Relations: Sources from the Ottoman Archives, is a product of meticulous study of İsmail Hakkı Kadı, A.C.S. Peacock and other contributors on historical documents from the Ottoman archives. The work contains documents in Ottoman-Turkish, Malay, Arabic, French, English, Tausung, Burmese and Thai languages, each introduced by an expert in the language and history of the related country. The work contains documents hitherto unknown to historians as well as others that have been unearthed before but remained confined to the use of limited scholars who had access to the Ottoman archives. The resources published in this study show that the Ottoman Empire was an active actor within the context of Southeast Asian experience with Western colonialism. The fact that the extensive literature on this experience made limited use of Ottoman source materials indicates the crucial importance of this publication for future innovative research in the field. Contributors are: Giancarlo Casale, Annabel Teh Gallop, Rıfat Günalan, Patricia Herbert, Jana Igunma, Midori Kawashima, Abraham Sakili and Michael Talbot"--

Forestry has traditionally been one of Myanmar's most important economic sectors, generating more in export earnings in the period 2010-2018. It is estimated that the country will have lost 12 million ha of forest between 1990 and 2020 - the third largest absolute forest loss of all countries during that period. The government now aims to restore or reforest about 884,000 ha on reserved forest (RF) and public protected forest (PPF) land under its 2016-28 Myanmar reforestation and rehabilitation program (MRRP). A range of reforms is needed to encourage private sector investment. These include: (i) identification of sufficiently large areas of suitable land close to potential processing sites or transport infrastructure and planning of land-use allocation; (ii) improving the availability of information on identified areas and on the process of acquiring plantation leases; (iii) streamlining leasing procedures and terms and scope of leases, including possible private management of state plantations; (iv) simplifying regulations on harvest and transport of plantation timber; (v) reviewing the suitability of current fiscal incentives, including tax holidays; (vi) improving information on areas and productivity of established plantations; and (vii) identifying priority research and development needs and delivery mechanisms.