Myanmar: Burma Puts the Brakes on Resource Exports to China

Feb 2, 2015 | Jonathan Manthorpe. Business Vancouver
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The seemingly endless nose-to-tail line of snorting trucks crossing the border from Burma into the far southwestern Chinese town of Ruili was mesmerizing.

Just as transfixing as the volume of trucks was the sameness of their loads. All carried three or four massive hardwood tree trunks, destined for China’s booming furniture-making industry.

That was 20 years ago, and the traffic, all technically illegal, has only accelerated since then. The plundering of Burma’s forests has reached the point where the international Environmental Investigation Agency warned last month that some species will become extinct within three years.