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Regime shifts&mdash ; rapid long-term transitions between stable states&mdash ; are well documented in ecology but remain controversial and understudied in land use and land cover change (LUCC). In particular, uncertainty surrounds the prevalence and causes of regime shifts at the landscape level. We studied LUCC dynamics in the Tanintharyi Region (Myanmar), which contains one of the last remaining significant contiguous forest areas in Southeast Asia but was heavily deforested between 1992&ndash ; 2015. By combining remote sensing methods and a literature review of historical processes leading to LUCC, we identified a regime shift from a forest-oriented state to an agricultural-oriented state between 1997&ndash ; 2004. The regime shift was triggered by a confluence of complex political and economic conditions within Myanmar, notably the ceasefires between various ethnic groups and the military government, coupled with its enhanced business relations with Thailand and China. Government policies and foreign direct investment enabling the establishment of large-scale agro-industrial concessions reinforced the new agriculture-oriented regime and prevented reversion to the original forest-dominated regime. Our approach of integrating complementary analytical frameworks to identify and understand land-cover regime shifts can help policymakers to preempt future regime shifts in Tanintharyi, and can be applied to the study of land change in other regions.

Informal gold mining (IGM) is a major driver of deforestation and source of global mercury emissions. Policy makers may seek to control the spread of IGM by enforcing rules and/or providing alternative livelihoods. We investigated the dynamics and drivers of IGM in northern Myanmar to shed light on the conditions needed for alternative livelihood and enforcement interventions to succeed. We surveyed 226 respondents who practiced mining and/or farming. We found that mining and agriculture provided complementary livelihoods for many respondents as they met different livelihood needs, and that many of the miners were economic migrants. Livelihood-based interventions based on agriculture/plantations—as currently planned by the regional government—are thus unlikely to provide true substitutes. The willingness of migrant miners to move under different economic circumstances suggests that livelihood-based interventions are unlikely to scale well—mining may simply be displaced to other regions, or new migrants might replace old migrants. We estimated that current enforcement efforts were insufficient and that a much higher level of enforcement—either constant presence of enforcement officials at each informal mining site, or confiscating equipment every month—would be required to make informal mining unprofitable. Enforcement effectiveness was further undermined by corruption in the guise of informal payments to local authorities. Our study is the first to estimate costs that enforcement imposes and the level of enforcement required to deter informal gold mining, and adds to the growing body of evidence that enforcement and alternative livelihood approaches alone are unlikely to deter informal gold mining.

All appendices are available from https://doi.org/10.17037/DATA.00000778. ; Objectives To assess the hand hygiene (HH) compliance before aseptic procedures among birth attendants in the10 highest-volume facilities in Zanzibar. We also examined the extent to which recontamination contributes to poor HH; recording exact recontamination occurrences is not possible using the existing World Health Organisation HH audit tool. Methods In this time-&-motion study, three trained coders used the WOMBATv2 software to record the hand actions of all birth attendants present in the study sites. The percentage compliance and 95% confidence intervals for individual HH behaviours and for behavioural sequences during labour and delivery were calculated.Results We observed 104 birth attendants and 781 HH opportunities before aseptic procedures. Compliance to hand rubbing/washing was 24.6% (CI:21.6-27.8). Only 9.6% (CI:7.6-11.9) also donned gloves and avoided glove recontamination. Half of the time when rubbing/washing or glove donning was performed, hands were recontaminated prior to the aseptic procedure. Conclusions In this study, HH compliance by birth attendants was poor before aseptic procedures. To our knowledge this is the first study in a LMIC to show the large contribution to poor HH compliance from hand and glove recontamination before the procedure. Recontamination is an important driver of infection risk from poor HH and should be understood for the purposes of improvement and therefore included in HH monitoring and interventions. © 2018 Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology, Inc. ; Medical Research Council–PHIND scheme, award number MR/N015975/1; The Soapbox Collaborative; CLEAN Study, funded by the United Kingdom Joint Global Health Trials (Wellcome, MRC, DFID, and DOH), award number MR/R019274/1; UK Medical Research Council (MRC) and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) under the MRC/DFID Concordat agreement which is also part of the EDCTP2 programme supported by the European Union. Grant Reference MR/K012126/1.

Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure- and energy-project planning, and reforming land-tenure and environmental-protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions.

Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure- and energy-project planning, and reforming land-tenure and environmental-protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions.