Environmental awareness is rising in Myanmar

Description: 

"How long does it take garbage to decompose? Do you know it? According to scientists, plastic items could take up to 500 years to decompose in landfills. Plastic pollution is one of the biggest issue worldwide, with statistic showing that there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish by 2050 if we do not change our habits. A simple example of the consequence of this ecological disaster, this year, a whale has died in southern Thailand after swallowing more than 80 plastic bags. In Myanmar, 80 million plastic bags are used every day and over 1690 tons of garbage is generated per day on the average from townships in Yangon Region, and 10 % of them are plastic waste. The situation is certainly not going to improve. Indeed, plastic bottles and solid waste production tripled in the last 5 years. In 2014, The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) - which is a method of quantifying and numerically marking the environmental performance of a state's policies- ranked Myanmar 164 out of 178 countries analyzed. According to the EPI, almost every aspect of performance related to regulation or infrastructure has scores among the lowest globally. For instance, Wastewater treatment was ranked 145. In addition, ecosystem vitality and protection of terrestrial biodiversity come out as particularly weak as Environmental health was ranked 137 with a score of 41.39. Forest and water resources as seen as the main Environmental Concerns basing on the Environmental Performance Assessment funded by the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Environment Programme. However, Myanmar government tries to tackle this issue through law and regulations. In its Constitution of 2008, Sec. 45 states that “The Union shall protect and conserve natural environment” and according to Sec. 390 (b) “Every citizen has the duty to assist the Union carrying out the environmental conservation”. Moreover, in his report, Dr. San Oo Director of Environmental Conservation Department, describes “sustainability Roadmap for Myanmar” whose legal framework is mainly based on two laws..."

Creator/author: 

Marion Fougerouse

Source/publisher: 

"CCI France Myanmar"

Date of Publication: 

2018-06-20

Date of entry: 

2019-08-18

Grouping: 

  • Individual Documents

Category: 

Countries: 

Myanmar

Language: 

English

Resource Type: 

text

Text quality: 

    • Good