Myanmar’s Forests Face Myriad Problems as Logging Ban Continues

Sep 29, 2016 | Jennifer Rigby
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Between 1990 and 2015, Myanmar lost nearly 15 million hectares of forest and other wooded land. Since 2010, half a million hectares of forest has been lost every year, or an area about the size of Brunei. In total, there are 29 million hectares of forest still standing in the country, and the FAO suggests that this means that just under half of Myanmar is still covered in forest (43 percent) and wooded land (23 percent). The threats to the forests in Myanmar are manifold, from excessive logging both legal and illegal, to clearance for agriculture or other development.

In the summer of 2016, the new government put a one-year countrywide logging ban in place, and a 10-year ban in the densely-forested Pegu Yoma region, building on the previous administration’s ban on raw timber exports, established in 2014. Experts cautiously welcomed the ban, which was later scheduled to be lifted in April 2017. Kerstin Canby, director of Forest Trends’ Forest Policy, Trade and Finance Program, said that the pause in official logging could represent a chance to put stronger, more effective policies in place.