MYAWADDY, Karen State — “Our Dawna range is like a bald head after severe logging,” said Aung Myo, a Myawaddy resident and trader, as he pointed toward the formidable Dawna mountain range in Karen State, near the Thai-Burma border.
Of Burma’s five official overland crossings with Thailand, it is here and at the adjacent Thai border town of Mae Sot that the illegal timber trade once flourished, and while that may no longer be the case, Aung Myo said it’s not for a reason that environmental conservationists would hope.
“More than 10 years ago, much illegal timber went to Thailand through this border area, but today there are very few timber trees left in the Dawna mountains,” he said.
The Dawna range, which extends north-south for about 350 kilometers and bisects the townships of Myawaddy and Kawkareik before tapering off in the western limits of the Thai highlands, once hosted a bounty of native timber specimens, including the prized teakwood for which Burma is renowned.
But in just over a decade, a combination of legal and illicit logging has wiped out large swathes of forest here, with Aung Myo’s anecdotal evidenced backed by hard figures from the United Nations.
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Burma lost an annual average of 1.7 percent of its forests from 2010-15, bringing total forest cover down to 45 percent. Just 15 years ago, forest cover stood at 65 percent, the UN agency says.
Policymakers have not sat idly by as the nation’s forests shrink; last April a ban on raw timber exports went into effect, requiring that all wood logged in Burma undergo value-added processes before leaving the country. But deprived of legal channels to move unprocessed timber out of the country, a thriving illicit trade continues, with the majority of illegal timber seized as it makes its way to trading points in northeastern Burma near the border with China. (Courtesy of Irrawaddy)
No comments:
Post a Comment