Timber extraction

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Websites/Multiple Documents

Title: Forests and forest peoples (link to OBL sub-section)
Description: Includes material on logging.
Source/publisher: Online Burma/Myanmar Library
Date of entry/update: 2014-12-21
Grouping: Websites/Multiple Documents
Language: English
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Individual Documents

Title: Despite sanctions on Myanmar, the US, UK, and EU imported more than $36 million in timber since the coup, exposing traders to risk of prosecution
Description: "Just over one year since the Myanmar military, known as the Tatmadaw, led a coup against the legitimately re-elected government, a new study finds that more than $190 million in imports of timber were reported from Myanmar in 2021, including to countries with sanctions, potentially exposing entities importing from Myanmar to risk of civil and criminal penalties. In response to the coup and to evidence that revenue from natural resources is funding the junta, the European Union (EU) and four countries (the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Canada, and Switzerland), have introduced sanctions that aim to limit the regime’s ability to collect revenue from sectors such as mining, forestry, and most recently, oil and gas. Since February 1, 2021, Myanmar’s economy has collapsed and the junta has increasingly turned to natural resources to support its regime, financing both military operations and violence against civilians, much like the previous military regime did for decades. The elected government had brought in anti-corruption reforms, but these are being undone. Sanctions can be effective, if enforced. This is being clearly demonstrated by recent sanctions from the US, UK, EU, and others on Russian banks and freezing assets belonging to Vladimir Putin’s top allies in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. “The role of forests in Myanmar really can’t be overstated,” says Michael Jenkins, CEO and Founding President of Forest Trends, “The return of military control last year was a shocking development as Myanmar was still transitioning from 50 years of harsh military rule to democracy, rule of law, and federalism. In the past, illegal logging, corruption, and illicit trade of wood products ran rampant. Money from illegal logging helped finance Myanmar’s decades long civil war and we need to move past that reality.” Forest Trends’ new report focuses on the role of forestry sanctions by the US, UK, EU, Canada, and Switzerland on the Myanma Timber Enterprise (MTE), the State-owned Enterprise that monopolized the forestry sector. Key Findings More than $190 million in trade of Myanmar timber has been reported from February to November 2021: $37 million to jurisdictions with sanctions and $154 million imported into China, India, Thailand, and other countries without sanctions. The provenance of the exported logs is unclear; the MTE does not report on its source, and since the coup, the MTE has only auctioned about 5% of the total that were reported as exported, but none of that wood was auctioned as export grade. Most markets have decreased their imports of timber from Myanmar since the coup, but others, including countries with sanctions have increased imports relative to 2020. In the US, where almost all imports were in the form of sawn teak for the luxury yacht market, the number of companies importing from Myanmar dropped by two-thirds to only 5 importers, yet total trade still increased slightly. Five EU Member States, Austria, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Poland, also showed substantial increases in imports. China, which has not imposed sanctions on Myanmar, also increased imports by 35% (or $29 million). All findings are likely an underestimate, as not all countries have reported trade for the entirety of 2021. Given the details of US sanctions, entities importing from Myanmar are already at risk of civil and criminal penalties for violating sanctions. Entities could also potentially be exposed to prosecution for the international war crime of pillage, given 1) the junta is illegitimate and does not have the legal right to sell Myanmar’s timber, 2) any timber sold by the junta is done without consent of the owner (in this case, the legally elected government, overthrown on February 1, 2021, which acts as the State’s representative), and 3) all timber sold is done in the context of armed conflict. There is no statute of limitations to prosecution of war crimes, such as pillage, and due to the gravity of the crime, there is universal jurisdiction, where any country may prosecute offenders. The US sanctions prohibit even the indirect benefit of the MTE. The Executive Order also has no grace period – the sanctions take immediate effect. The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has previously prosected entities that used US dollars in payments to sanctioned entities, even if the entities themselves have no other connection to the US. In other words, all trade with the MTE would be a violation of US sanctions, because teak is purchased in US dollars, even if no US companies are involved. All banks that facilitate these transactions would also be violating US sanctions. So far, only Canada has sanctioned the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank, which facilitates all MTE US dollar transactions (all are held in foreign banks). “To close this loophole and make sanctions more effective, countries should expand financial sanctions to include the Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank,” says Kerstin Canby, Senior Director of Forest Trends’ Forest Policy, Trade, and Finance Initiative, “Doing so would help stop spill over to non-sanctioned markets by making it a violation to facilitate this trade with any country. Countries that have not yet imposed sanctions should do so, otherwise they are bankrolling the junta.” The stakes in war-torn Myanmar could not be higher as the junta continues its violent crackdown against its people. The crimes of illegal harvest, sale, and export of Myanmar’s resources, much of it extracted from conflict areas claimed by the country’s ethnic minorities, are producing revenues that allow the military to perpetrate horrific crimes, not only against the country’s democracy but also its civilians. To date, the regime has killed over 1,600 unarmed civilians and arrested over 12,500 more. Sanctioning the junta – and implementing those sanctions – is one thing the international community can, and should, do to support the people of Myanmar..."
Source/publisher: Forest Trends (Washington, D.C.)
Date of publication: 2022-03-07
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar’s Timber Trade One Year Since the Coup
Sub-title: The Impact of International Sanctions
Description: "On February 1st, 2021, the military launched a coup d’état against the newly re-elected government of Myanmar. Over the past year, the military junta has been accused of massive human rights violations, arresting more than 12,000 people, killing more than 1,500, and instigating a growing humanitarian crisis that has seen more than 400,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) (AAPP Burma 2022, UN News 2022). Compounding the impact of COVID-19, the military’s violence has destroyed Myanmar’s economy. Furthermore, the majority of society has engaged in a predominately non-violent Civil Disobedience Movement (CDM), including a boycott of companies with military links. Deprived of revenue, the junta has increasingly relied on revenue from natural resources to support their operations and their ongoing campaign to retain power, which has included escalation of armed conflict and attacks on civilians. While much international focus has been given to the revenues generated by the oil, gas, and mining sectors, the forest sector has in the past been an important source of revenue for Myanmar’s governments and entities associated with the military. This report reviews the timber sector’s role in the revenue now being generated for the current military regime..."
Source/publisher: Forest Trends (Washington, D.C.)
Date of publication: 2022-03-07
Date of entry/update: 2022-03-09
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Format : pdf
Size: 2.3 MB (Original version) - 42 pages
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Title: Burma Campaign UK Welcomes EU sanctions on Timber and Gems enterprises
Description: "Burma Campaign UK today welcomed the imposition of sanctions on state owned timber and gems enterprises, and on the Myanmar War Veterans Organisation (MWVO). Timber and gems are significant revenue earners for the military, and the MWVO is part of the military and also has significant business interests, including in transport. Burma Campaign UK has been campaigning for the EU to sanction the timber and gems industry and the MWVO. “These new sanctions from the EU are very welcome, not only cutting revenue to the military but also letting them know that economic pressure will keep increasing,” said Anna Roberts, Executive Director of Burma Campaign UK. “The EU must now also look at creative ways to stop oil and gas revenue reaching the military. It is vital to continue to systematically identify and cut sources of revenue to the military.” Almost 900 people have been killed and more than 200,000 people have been forced to flee their homes since the military coup on 1st February. The EU has also announced sanctions on 8 more individuals, bringing the total to 43..."
Source/publisher: "Burma Campaign UK" (London)
Date of publication: 2021-06-21
Date of entry/update: 2021-06-22
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Myanmar Military Leaders Looking to “Fund Coup” with Auction of Illegal Timber
Description: "The military junta that seized control of Myanmar earlier this year is seeking to "line its pockets" by selling off thousands of tons of illegal timber to international markets, the Environmental Investigation Agency reported on Friday in its latest update on the country’s “tainted timber” trade. During the last term of the ‘legitimate’ government of Myanmar, the state took steps to combat illegal logging and seized about 200,000 tons of illegal timber, the EIA previously reported. That will now be up for auction by the Myanmar Timber Enterprise (MTE), a state-run entity which controls all timber sales across the country. The EIA said that the enterprise operates an “opaque” auction system where international traders place a deposit of US$10,000 before bidding for a final price. “Why would this State enterprise do this, other than to obtain desperately needed hard currency to continue the junta’s brutal persecution of the people of Myanmar?” asked Faith Doherty, an EIA Forests Campaigns Leader, in a statement. “This is additional confirmation of EIA allegations that the military regime is using timber to support itself and its reign of terror.” The move comes as more stringent sanctions are being placed on the country. Last week, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control placed sanctions on Khin Maung Yi, the Minister for Myanmar’s Ministry of Natural Resources, Environment and Conservation (MONREC), who has, according to the EIC, “directly profited” from the selling of the country’s natural resources. “This is conflict timber, it is illegal in so many ways, and seeking to buy and import it from Myanmar would amount to nothing more than naked profiteering on the country’s misery and suffering,” Doherty said, urging the European Union and the U.K. to follow the U.S. and Canada by imposing sanctions on the timber trade. Myanmar’s deadly military coup began in February, after only six years of democratic rule but according to the initial report by the EIC in March of this year, the MTE’s trade has long been embroiled in corruption—even before the country’s short-lived democracy—illegally harvesting and smuggling the timber and evading or reducing taxation in order to ship teak to European markets. The report also highlighted how the military continues to profit from exports of timber, particularly from teak in high demand for the luxury yachting sector. Deforestation has claimed an area roughly the size of Finland and Slovakia combined was lost between 2001 and 2019..."
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Source/publisher: Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project
Date of publication: 2021-05-25
Date of entry/update: 2021-05-25
Grouping: Individual Documents
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Title: Democratising Timber: An Assessment of Myanmar?s Emerging ?Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade? (FLEGT) Process
Description: "... This paper attempts to analyse the key aspects of reforms required to ?democratise? Myanmar?s timber trade, and the political?economic interests contributing or obstructing reform. The main aim of this paper is to assess the prospects for reform of Myanmar?s timber sector in light of theemerging FLEGT process, and to apply a political ecological analysis to the ways in which the political?economic power balance will determine the outcomes. We use aspects of political?ecological analysis to understand the nature and dynamics of the contested reform process: firstly structural explanations for the ways in which different groups gain access to resources — in this case forests and timber, andwho gains and loses through these processes; and secondly, a critical analysis of how polices relate to the exercise of power and practices on the ground. (Springate-Baginski and Blaikie, 2007: 10). Methodologically, the often opaque and generally illicit nature of Myanmar?s present timber trade makes primary data collection extremely difficult, even hazardous. There is also limited government data, and what there is, is systematically misleading (EIA, 2014). Therefore for this overview paper we necessarily rely on secondary sources and anonymous interviews (conducted in Spring 2013), along with the personal experience of the authors. To help clarify the complex and fluid contemporary situation this first section sets out the overall political and historical context of Myanmar?s timber trade..."
Creator/author: Anthony Neil, Oliver Springate-Baginski, Aung Kyaw Thein, Win Myo Thu, Faith Doherty
Source/publisher: Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA)
Date of publication: 2014-10-07
Date of entry/update: 2016-04-19
Grouping: Individual Documents
Language: English
Format : pdf
Size: 643.41 KB
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