Deforestation Accelerates In Myanmar - Reuters

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BANGKOK (Reuters) - "Myanmar's famed teak forests are shrinking due to rampant logging fueled by a cash-strapped military government and timber-hungry neighbors China and Thailand, campaigners said Wednesday.

Global Witness said a worsening economy hit by sanctions and foreign aid cuts would put more pressure on the former Burma's dwindling forests as it sought badly needed foreign exchange.

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Official data show timber exports ranged from nearly 700,000 to 800,000 cubic meters in recent years, but the report saiid the real numbers were probbly much higher due to 'informal' logging it blamed on corruption and mismanagement. 'Unrecorded exports in excess of one million cubic meters, worth $250 million, strongly suggest that the regime has lost control of its forest sector,' Buckrell said.

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Chinese companies dominate logging in Myanmar's Kachin State, feeding factories across the border with few benefits to Kachin's impoverished people, the report said. Beijing, which banned logging in 1998 after severe floods blamed on deforestation, imported more than one million cubic meters of Myanmar timber last year and that could rise to 1.4 million cubic meters in 2003, Global Witness said."

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