Illegal Logging in Burma (14 November)
Losing Habitat Isn't the Only Danger (21 October 2005)
Environmental laws? Not for me! (17 October)
Cambodia's Most Wanted Hunter (12 September)
Environmental Nightmare (16 May)
Cutting More Forest (16 May)
Asian Elephants (21 February)
In a section of Burma described as "very possibly the most biodiverse, rich, temperate area on earth," illegal logging is taking place at an astounding rate. Global Witness, an environmental watchdog, says that Chinese businesses and a booming Chinese economy, working in collusion with Burma's ruling junta, are literally stripping the country bare. In 2004, 95% of Burma's timber exports to China were illegally exported and imported with the full knowledge of both governments, according to Global Witness' report. A truckload of logs crosses the border into China every seven minutes on average. Environmental observers say it's not smuggling. "It's out in the open and easy to see" despite promises by the Chinese government and the European Union to tackle the problem.
Cambodia's elephants are faced with a shrinking habitat where they can roam and breed and feed, but that is not the only danger confronting them. Last week two sister elephants, one six years old and the other two years old, stepped on a landmine. The older sister lost the toes and sole of her right hind foot and the younger suffered the same damage on her left front foot. Luckily they were found and are being treated in an elephant hospital in Thailand. Of the eighteen elephants there, six were injured by landmines.
Recently the prime minister signed documents giving two huge land concessions of about 50,000 acres to a commercial company, without doing the necessary environmental and social assessments as required by law. The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries wrote to the prime minister requesting permission to award the concessions and the prime minister signed the letters of approval the next day. The Agriculture Minister said that the land was not very fertile and covered with only undergrowth, but another official in the environmental department said that the land is tall-canopy jungle, with elephants and tigers. The company plans to grow acacia trees which are known to deplete underground water sources and cause other environmental problems.
Cambodia has large areas of jungle which are disappearing quickly because of illegal logging. The wildlife in the jungles is disappearing quickly, too, both because of the destruction of habitat and because of illegal hunting. Recently a Cambodian court sentenced the man known as Cambodia's "most wanted hunter" to seven years in prison. Yore Nun, from the northeastern jungle area, is known to have killed 19 tigers, 40 leopards, 30 elephants, 500 gaud (a wild cattle), and dozens of bears. Most of his hunting was to supply the lucrative market in Chinese medicines which rely on body parts from endangered species.
The New York Times has published an interesting op/ed article about the environmental movement and how it may be undermining its own effectiveness by being too alarmist.
The forests are always the losers in Cambodia. They have been disappearing rapidly, and illegal logging continues even though donors protest and have drawn up protective plans and even with environmental NGOs established as watchdogs. Usually the money goes to the government or at least to government and military officials. Now a new onslaught on the nation's forests is going to be ordered by the government to provide 10,000 cubic meters (that's about 5,000 trees) of luxury and non-luxury wood to be used in the construction of the new National Assembly building. Donors are worried because there is supposed to be a moratorium on logging throughout 2005 so the government will be violating its own policy.
Asia's beleaguered elephant population could plummet if action isn't taken to resolve conflicts between man and beast, the World Wide Fund for Nature said in a report. Animals are being poisoned by plantation workers, shot by angry farmers, and killed for their meat, hide and tusks, according to the group, known as the World Wildlife Fund in North America. Train and road collisions have also resulted in accidental deaths of elephants. In one year, 126 wild elephants died because of conflict with humans in Sri Lanka alone, the organization said, while about 300 people die in India every year when hungry elephants forced from their traditional migration routes raid crops. Asian elephants survive in the wild in only 13 countries today, and the population is a tenth of that of African elephants.