The border between Thailand and Burma stretches for 1,930 km. For years, the Mon, Karen, and Karenni ethnic m inorities controlled the timber trade along the Thai border and used low impact harvesting methods that protected the forest. This situation changed in December 1988 when the Ministry of Forestry granted contracts to foreign logging companies, a move that was triggered by an acute shortage of foreign exchange following the end of official development assistance and concessional lending in September 1988.
Within months, 42 five-year logging concessions were granted to 36 Thai companies, many of them linked to Thai military interests rather than specialist forestry firms. The contracts covered up to 18,800 km, tripled the area being exploited, and were worth $112 million a year, doubling the government's timber income. Many of the Thai logging concessions were deliberately located in rebel-controlled territory. In addition to generating revenue, logging along the Thai border coincided with Rangoon's desire to control rebel-held territory. The most important strategic consideration was the construction of logging roads. The regime had been unable to bring the full weight of its military superiority to bear against the ethnic armies because there were few roads in these areas. Once the logging roads were bulldozed, however, the Burmese army was able to advance rapidly. There is a close correlation between the granting of a concession and the initiation of military offensives against the ethnic minorities.
In July 1992, the government announced the cancellation of all Thai logging concessions, effective December 31, 1993. There are a number of explanations for this abrupt and surprising change of policy. Officially, the decision was precipitated by the discovery that some of the regime's Thai partners were violating the terms of their contracts by clear-cutting and exporting more timber than was specified. The Ministry of Forestry was apparently stung by international criticism and embarrassed by the scale of the logging by Thai companies, over whom it had little control. In an interview in 1996, Minister of Forestry Lieutenant General Chit Swe called this attempt to attract foreign investment " a foolish mistake" that " produced no tangible benefit to the government" (Asia Inc., 1996).
Another explanation was Rangoon's desire to stop the flow of money from the Thai logging companies to the KNU. Many of the concessions were located in the Maneplaw and Three Pagodas Pass border areas held by the KNU. Taxation of the border trade, particularly in teak, from which the KNU earned $60/m3 (and from which the regime earned $80/m3), was the economic basis of the Karen resistance (Bryant, 1997). Indeed, between 1989 and 1993, the KNU permitted overcutting in a desperate attempt to maintain forest-based revenue. Unable to cut the KNU out of this activity, the Minister canceled the Thai concessions.
As a result of this change in policy, Burma's legal teak exports fell by more than 40 percent from 1994 to 1995, while other hardwood exports fell by more than 90 percent. Although other hardwood receipts fell from $82 million to $19 million, teak receipts actually increased because of Burma's near-monopoly position on the world's market. To compensate for reduced timber revenues, the regime quadrupled rice exports during this period from $44 million to $197 million. This dramatic increase proved unsustainable, however, and rice production fell by 40 percent in 1996. Lower revenues from legal hardwood exports were also compensated for by a 25-fold increase in illegal log exports to China between 1994 and 1995.
Overcutting resulted in widespread deforestation in the logging concessions as Thai loggers extracted more timber than was allowed under the terms of their contracts. Furthermore, cutting also took place outside designated areas as loggers took advantage of the lack of government control to extract timber free of charge. Some indication of the intensity of logging is given by the fact that in April 1993, 500,000 m3 of cut logs were ready for shipment (equivalent to 80 percent of Burma's declared log exports in 1993), and that logs felled prior to 1994 continue to be extracted, thanks to the network of logging roads built between 1989 and 1993. As a result, the border forests on which the KNU relied have been largely depleted, undermining a key element in the Karen resource base (Bryant, 1997).
Traditional practices for removing trees without causing collateral damage include girdling the tree, whereby a band of bark is removed from around the trunk so that the branches die and do not damage other trees on felling. Elephants were used to move logs to feeder streams, and monsoon floods transported the timber to downstream depots. This was an environmentally benign system, but it took several years between girdling and arrival of the teak at the sawmill. Thai loggers speeded up this process by using heavy machinery to cut and grade new roads so that trucks could haul out timber all year round. The width of the roads was greater than needed, and large areas of bare soil were exposed to erosion. The roads also often ran beside streams, causing rapid siltation. Uncontrolled road construction and clear-cutting, combined with heavy rainfall and steep slopes, caused rapid soil erosion, reduced dry season flow, and increased flooding of the Salween, the river most affected by logging (Manila Observatory, 1990).
Copyright © 1998. Logging Burma's Frontier Forests: Resources and the Regime (Washington, DC: World Resources Institute). This posting does not use the adopted name "Myanmar," given to Burma by the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) in 1988. The name Burma is used in accordance with the Burmese National League for Democracy, the United States Government and many other countries, and leading publications including The Washington Post, Bangkok Post, The Nation, and The Far Eastern Economic Review.