Sangkhlaburi -- A ban on illegal logging by Naypidaw, Burma's capital on the Three Pagodas Pass border, in a remote region on the Thai Burma border, has proven to be highly lucrative for the Burmese Army commanders who take bribes from traders and logging partners to carry on with their logging operations.
Because illegal logging occurs outside legal channels, the bribes and illegal taxes goes right into the pockets of army officials and rebel groups, rather than into the community at large. A businessman close to the SPDC authorities on the Thai Burma border town told a Kaowao reporter that Captain Aye Ko Ko, who is in charge of the Burma Army IB 34 based on the border near Three Pagodas Pass collects approximately 70,000 Baht per 10 wheeler truck loaded with timber and 30,000 Baht for smaller trucks to give them the nod to cross the border.
The source estimates that 60 trucks per month pass into Thailand. On June 21, there were 37 trucks and on July 10, 18 trucks loaded with timber went through the TPP border pass without a hitch.
The SPDC issued an order to ban illegal logging in 2004 but the order has had little effect on the corruption ingrained in the local authorities who take bribes to turn a blind eye. Captain Aye Ko Ko and another commander from the Burma Army's Sayapha Branch are now fighting for control over the illegal check point, added the businessman.
Environmentalists claim vast tracts of pristine timber are being cut down from Burma's forests that have further degraded an already damaged environment. Rebel groups along the border also flout the laws and receive illegal taxes for logging hardwood trees which has spread deforestation in Burma's southern forests.
The rugged mountain terrain and harsh topography hundreds of miles from the new capital that characterizes the landscape on the eastern border with Thailand forms part of the northern Tennasserim mountain range that hosts a number of endemic flora and fauna species that needs further exploration for species identification and is ranked as one of the most ecologically diverse rainforest regions in the world and named in the top 200 for biodiversity and the fourth for mammal diversity in the Indo Pacific region by the World Wildlife Fund.
According to WWF much of the area on the Burma side is 'habitat intact' and remains unexplored. At higher elevations the tropical deciduous and evergreen forest which faces the Bay of Bengal receives more precipitation than on the Thai side of the border that causes problems of malaria outbreak among Burmese migrants crossing through the jungle on their way to the Thai-Burma border. At the lower elevations are found huge swathes of teak forests being cleared away without any forest or logging management policy and are thought to have caused environmental problems recently such as less rainfall and flooding from erosion, according to local villagers.
Loggers from the Burma border travel deep into the forests, far away from the border town, to log and transport the timber. They employ local villagers, elephants, and oxen that work in the saw mills and use large trucks to bring the timber back across the border. Big trees are not found along the Burma border as most have been logged, however the scope of illegal logging and its effect on the environment is difficult to assess due to lack of access to the region.
According to Nai Taing Htow who works as a volunteer for a Mon NGO, unsustainable practices and illegal logging only leads to losses in value added development for the surrounding community in the long term, "despite the SPDC authorities having banned furniture and log exports to Thailand, businessmen still operate by paying bribes to local authorities and local community development will suffer as a result," he said.
