Burma's Forests, a report from WATE

[brelief@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Burma's Forests, a report from WATERSHED

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We recently saw an unscientific, naive, and  misleading article in January's
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN regarding Burma's forests and use of working elephants.  

We hope that some Burmanet readers will forward the following to SA's
editors and perhaps include letters to the editor so that SA's readership
will learn the plain truth about SLORC's opportunistic sale of natural
resources and their ruthless treatment of ethnic minorities. 

 

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>FromWATERSHED
People's Forum on Ecology
Burma, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, Vietnam
Vol. 1 No. 2.  November 1995 -- February 1996
"Seeing the People for the Trees:
Protected Areas in the Region"

PROTECTED AREAS SYSTEMS IN BURMA:
FORESTS UNDER THE GUN

There are 5 National Parks and 16 Wildlife Sanctuaries in
Burma, covering about 1 per cent of the country's total land
area.  According to a report by the Tropical Forest Programme
of the World Conservation Union (IUCN), "The present
coverage of protected areas in Burma is by far the lowest in
S.E. Asia and is totally inadequate for purposes of biological
conservation ... The reserve forests are all subject to
exploitation of timber and other forest produce, including
wildlife." Due to decades of civil war and military government,
an accurate appraisal of the forests has not been possible as
vast areas of the country are not accessible for surveys or
research of forests and declared protected areas.

The limited information available suggests that Burma is being
rapidly deforested.  In 1960, approximately 50 per cent of the
country was under forest, and Burma's Ministry for Forestry
contends that this amount of forest cover has not changed in
the past 35 years.  Independent observers put forest cover at
about 30 per cent and decreasing rapidly.  UNDP and FAO
estimated that in 1975 average destruction of forest was about
1,250 square kilometres per year, but only five years later, this
rate had increased to 6,000 square kilometres per year.  In
1992, the NGO Rainforest Action Network reported that the
average area of forest destroyed in Burma had increased to
between 8,000 and 10,000 square kilometres per year - one of
the highest national rates of forest destruction in the world.

Since 1988, when the SLORC declared itself Burma's
government, forest destruction has accelerated rapidly, with
SLORC signing its first commercial logging contracts allowing
cross - border timber exports to Thailand and China.  By 1989,
companies from Thailand alone had received over 40 logging
concessions located along the Thai - Burma border, most of
which were in the control of ethnic minority groups defending
their territories against the SLORC military.  In the early
1990s, SLORC also signed logging concession and joint -
venture timber processing contracts with logging companies
from South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore.  Meanwhile,
ethnic minority groups such as  the Maung Tai Army of Shan
State and the Karen National Union, under increasing pressure
from the SLORC military; also engaged in logging to fund
armsI     purchases so they could defend their territories.

r    Independent observers have been scathing in their criticism of
logging by Thai companies in forest areas controlled by the
SLORC.  In 1994 Martin Smith, a journalist and specialist on
Burma, observed, "Though Lt. Gen Chit Swe, Minister for
Forestry, has claimed that these new border concessions
account for only 2.6 per cent of Burma's total forest reserves, it
is precisely in these remote and previously undisturbed border
regions that many of the most ecologically - important reserves
still remain."

Although there is little, if any, indication that the SLORC is
determined to protect Burma's forests and wildlife habitat, the
same can not be said for one of the ethnic minority groups
attempting to defend its territory, people and forests from
SLORC.

In 1982, the Karen National Union established 11 wildlife
sanctuaries within its territory.  In southern Burma's Mergui
Tavoy District, the Karen Forestry Department has set up the
Ka Ser Doh and Ta Naw Tha Ri wildlife sanctuaries, the
former covering an area of 420 square kilometres and the latter
an area of 2,250 square kilometres.  However, the Karen's
efforts to conserve these, and other, ecologically - important
forest areas, have been extremely hampered by years of war
and logging by Thai companies.  

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