Karen National Union soldiers join forces with villagers to fight illegal logging
In Myanmar’s southeast, the Karen National Union has united with villagers to combat the illegal logging that threatens livelihoods. As the country goes to the polls today, Laura Villadiego investigates a new wave of politically driven deforestation. Pictures by Antolin Avezuela.
The easiest way to reach the Da Gwin guard post is to take a boat along the Salween River, a natural frontier between Myanmar and Thailand. In this area of Myanmar’s Karen State, which has been under the control of the rebel Karen National Union (KNU) for more than 50 years, roads are few and forests predominate. The post is home to 17 soldiers, a unit belonging to the Karen National Defence Organisation (KNDO), one of the KNU’s two military branches, who check everything that goes in and out of the rebel-held area.
They pay special attention to logs. Myanmar has some of the most extensive forests left in Asia. Forty-five per cent of the country is forested, according to official statistics, and a quarter of that is primary forest. However, the country also has one of the fastest deforestation rates in the region.
For decades, the military junta that rules Myanmar and the rebel groups that oppose the government, mainly in the north and east of the country, have grasped at the riches that logging delivers. The pace slowed between 2005 and 2010, when international pressure had some effect, but the rate of deforestation has never been as fast as it has since 2010, when a democratisation process began that put in power a semi-civilian government in 2011, after five decades of military rule.
Not everyone is chopping with wild abandon, however.
“It used to be our business, but it is not anymore, because we realised that the deforestation was too high,” says Saw Ba Tun, head of the KNU’s Forestry Department. In 2009, the KNU outlawed most forms of logging. It also recognised the rights of communities to manage the forest surrounding the areas in which they lived.
The troops based in Da Gwin are just some of the 70 soldiers who, along with more than 100 villagers, have been combatting illegal logging, which, they say, has been on the rise in the area since the KNU signed a ceasefire with the central government, in 2012.
For centuries, people in the area have relied on the forests for their survival. The trees provide the villagers with food, water and medicine, and, the locals believe, shelter protective spirits.