Guwahati, Feb. 28 -- bySonam Lama Hyolmo

Community land for most Indigenous Karen people in Myanmar is not subject to ownership - it is rather a source of their faith, a divine creator of which the Karen are solely the custodians.

Despite this belief, Karen communities living in the southern Kayin state (or Kawthoolei, as Karen nationalists call it) have taken part in a land registration effort for more than a decade now. Karen leaders and activists map out ancestral lands in seven districts of the state, register them in a database and provide locals with their own land title certificates - all without asking the central government.

It was the aftermath of frequent violent attacks that killed and displaced many people from their lands...