The story of Myanmar’s forests is one of the most dramatic and tragic clashes between nature and humanity in modern times. Unlike neighbouring Thailand, where deforestation was successfully halted through strict laws, Myanmar’s natural wealth has for decades been directly subjected to the interests of brutal military dictatorships and civil war.

The forests of Myanmar, which we long knew as Burma, were once famous as the world’s richest and most biologically diverse tropical hardwood forests, home to more than 75% of the world’s natural teak stands.

In the 19th century, upon incorporating Burma into their empire, the British introduced a strict scientific forestry system known as the Burma Selection System. It established rigorous logging cycles and quotas to ensure sustainability, although the primary goal was to secure high-quality timber for the British Navy.

Following independence and the rise to power of military dictator Ne Win in 1962, the “Burmese Way to Socialism” began. The national economy collapsed, and to obtain foreign currency, the military regime began uncontrolled, mass-scale industrial logging, completely ignoring the previous sustainability principles upheld by the British. Since then, Myanmar has had one of the highest deforestation rates in the world.

Forest management as a machine for financing dictatorship and war

In Myanmar, forestry has never been merely an ecological or economic issue – it has always been an instrument of military power and the financing of military operations. All logging and timber exports are legally controlled by one state institution – the state-owned enterprise Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE), which (both the company and its profits) is directly managed by the army and its close oligarchs, the junta's allies. Just like the “blood diamonds” of Africa, Myanmar’s high-value teak is internationally referred to as “blood timber”. Profits from timber exports go directly into the army’s coffers, allowing it to purchase weapons, ammunition, and aviation fuel to be used in attacks against its own citizens.

The 2021 coup and the current ecological catastrophe

After a brief and unstable period of democratic reform from 2011 to 2021, during which attempts were made to implement export restrictions, the military coup of 1 February 2021 and the subsequent brutal civil war caused a complete collapse of environmental management.

Although the USA and the European Union imposed harsh sanctions on MTE and banned the import of timber from Myanmar, Western luxury yacht and furniture manufacturers still continue to purchase Myanmar teak through intermediary countries or illegal channels. More than 80% of illegal timber flows across the land border into neighbouring China. China has protected its own forests, so its massive demand for timber is met specifically by the mass destruction of Myanmar’s forests.

A new threat is gold mining in Myanmar. Analysis by satellite imagery and researchers shows that since the coup, forest loss is no longer driven solely by log extraction. In a country where the central economy has collapsed, illegal small-scale gold mining and mineral extraction in forested areas are seeing a massive boom, irreversibly destroying the soil and contaminating rivers with mercury.

Ethnic struggles and indigenous rights

Myanmar’s forests are mostly located in the border regions of the Kachin, Shan, Karen, and Mon states, which are inhabited by ethnic minorities. These territories have been the primary battlefield of the civil war for seven decades.

The forests are fragmented. Some areas are controlled by the Myanmar military, others by ethnic armed organisations, such as the Karen National Liberation Army or the Kachin Independence Army. Historically, both conflicting parties have used logging and timber taxes to finance their soldiers.

Before the coup, many ethnic minority communities successfully managed their local forests themselves, based on generations of tradition and sustainable rotational agriculture. With the escalation of the war, air strikes, and mass forced displacement of the population (more than 3.5 million people have become refugees), these local protection systems have been destroyed. Refugee camps and displaced people, in order to survive, are often forced to use nearby forests for firewood and subsistence. Any opposition to illegal logging in Myanmar is life-threatening. Local journalists, environmental activists, and forest inspectors who attempt to document illegal shipments to China are arrested, tortured, or killed by the army, as well as by armed groups and organised crime syndicates.

If Thailand has turned towards strict nature conservation, Myanmar is currently experiencing a total collapse of forest management. The forest here remains a war trophy. As long as a military dictatorship rules the country and civil war continues, forests of teak and other valuable species will be cruelly exploited as a source of quick profit, leaving severe, long-term consequences for the entire Southeast Asian region.

The illegal paths and schemes of “blood teak”

Myanmar teak is unique due to its natural oil content and density, making it the most durable and sought-after material in the world for luxury yacht decks and exclusive furniture manufacturing. Although the European Union already completely banned timber imports from Myanmar in 2013 under the EU Timber Regulation (EUTR) and later through harsh sanctions following the 2021 coup, European yacht builders still find ways to obtain this wood by using complex “laundering” schemes.

Since direct import from the state enterprise Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE) into Europe is a criminal offence, the timber is first illegally or semi-legally shipped to other countries, such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, or Vietnam, where corrupt companies involved mix Myanmar timber with local plantation material and issue new certificates of origin, passing off Myanmar teak as, for example, a product of “Malaysian origin”.

Studies by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) show how individual timber traders in Italy and Germany continue to import raw logs by exploiting loopholes in local customs control, for example by claiming that the timber was purchased before the sanctions came into effect or that it is impossible to precisely prove its connection to the Myanmar junta. From these warehouses, the timber reaches luxury shipyards in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands to be transformed into the decks of multi-millionaires' superyachts.

How the international community sees these crimes

As civil war rages in Myanmar and physical access to border forests is impossible or life-threatening for independent journalists or international observers, satellite monitoring has become the main tool for documenting deforestation. Organisations like Global Forest Watch and the EIA use high-resolution satellite imagery and artificial intelligence algorithms to bypass the information blockade imposed by the junta.

Satellites detect sudden changes in the forest canopy. When new, illegal roads and heavy machinery tracks appear in the middle of the jungle, the system automatically sends out alerts. This allows researchers to see exactly in which ethnic minority territories the junta or groups close to it are carrying out mass tree felling.

Satellites helped identify a new trend after the 2021 coup – illegal hydraulic gold mining in river basins in Kachin State. Images clearly show how green jungles are turning into muddy deserts and how toxic sediments, such as mercury, are flowing into the rivers.

International analysts compare the log-piling sites visible in satellite imagery near the Chinese border with official Chinese customs data. If China reports “zero imports” from Myanmar, but satellites detect trucks laden with thousands of logs crossing the border, this serves as irrefutable evidence in international courts and for the expansion of sanction lists.

China’s efforts in Myanmar’s forests

China’s influence on Myanmar’s forests and economy is so immense that many analysts effectively consider the Myanmar border region to be a resource colony of China. China has implemented very strict logging bans within its own country to protect its ecology, but its massive industry and construction sector require timber, which it “pumps” from Myanmar without any qualms.

A large portion of the valuable teak and mahogany forests are located in Kachin and Shan states, which are not controlled by the central government but by various ethnic armed organisations or paramilitaries loyal to the junta. Chinese timber magnates strike direct deals with these armed groups, paying in cash or supplying weapons and fuel in exchange for the right to clear-fell entire forest tracts. At border checkpoints on the Myanmar side, laws do not apply, and shipments flow unobstructed into Yunnan Province in China.

Since the 2021 coup, the Myanmar military junta has been politically and economically isolated from the West, making it completely dependent on Beijing. China uses this situation to legally and illegally take control of Myanmar’s infrastructure and natural resources. Chinese state-owned enterprises are pressuring the junta to sign long-term concession agreements that give China exclusive rights not only to logging but also to the construction of hydroelectric power stations, the flooding of forest territories, and the mining of rare-earth metals.

In addition to the felling of natural forests, Chinese companies are buying up or forcibly seizing land from local Myanmar farmers on a massive scale to clear local tropical forests and replace them with banana and rubber plantations, where toxic pesticides and fertilisers manufactured in China and banned in Europe are used uncontrollably, poisoning the soil and groundwater and rendering the land irreversibly unfit for anything else.

The tragedy of Myanmar’s forests lies in the fact that they have become the victim of two immense forces – on one hand, the local military junta uses them to buy weapons and ammunition for its survival, and on the other, China’s economic machinery consumes the forests to “feed” global exports, while Western multi-millionaires continue to look for ways to purchase these banned resources.

Sources: Zemeunvalsts.lv, European Union and Asian news websites