Teak extraction in the Salween River watershed forests required the use of trained elephants which dragged prodded the logs (a process known as aunging) until they were swept downstream. It was local Karen who captured, trained and owned many of these elephants. Such was their reputation in the business that when the British acquired the Pegu teak forests in 1852, their first task was to persuade Karen mahouts to move with their elephants from Tenassarim to Pegu.
In colonial times, the link between the Karen and commercial forestry management was further strengthened. Thus, Karen were prominent in the colonial forest service created in 1856. This was especially so in areas such as Tenassarim where the Karen population was large. Barred, as were Burmese, from the senior forest service, Karen youth nevertheless served in the subordinate service as guards and rangers.
The Karen were also central to plantation forestry in Burma from the mid 19th century. Under the taungya forestry sys- tem, colonial foresters employed Karen shifting cultivators to plant teak in their hill clearings, or taungya. As the cultivators moved to a new area after a couple of years, the process was repeated. In this manner, timber plantations were left in their wake.
The historical links between the Karen and forest use and management were thus well developed at the time of Burmese independence in 1948. It was not surprising, therefore, that those links would be an integral part of Karen attempts to establish an independent Karen state along the Thai-Burmese border. In the process, forest use and management was associated with security, livelihood and identity issues.

Forests as a source of refuge

From the start, the forests have been crucial to Karen political and military efforts insofar as they have served as a source of refuge from the Burmese army. Except during the first years of the insurgency, the Karen have been involved in an unequal struggle with a much larger and better equipped military adversary. The trend in the fighting between the Burmese army (tatmadaw) and the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA, previously the Karen National Defence Organization) has been a gradual retreat of the KNLA from central Burma to the remote border area. Confronted by the superior fire-power of the tatmadaw, the KNLA have used the forests strategically as a source of refuge in which to regroup and replenish supplies. In doing so, the KNLA have relied on local Karen for food, directions, recruits and intelligence about the tatmadaw. In the early 1950s,Karen forces took refuge in the Pegu Yoma forests, but subsequently shifted east into the more inaccessible hills along the Burmese-Thai border.
The Burmese army has long sought undermine the role of the forests as a source of refuge for the KNLA. A primary goal has been to cut the KNLA off from villagers through the Four Cuts (pya ley pya) campaign. Under this counter-insurgency campaign (which aims to cut links to local food, funds, intelligence and recruits), local Karen were forcibly removed from their villages and resettled in army-controlled settlements. Initially focused on the Pegu Yoma forests, the campaign was continued by the tatmadaw in the border region. In addition to forced resettlement, the Burmese army has press-ganged Karen into service on the front line as porters. Between 1989 and 1993, the State Law and order Restoration Council (SLORC) — the military junta ruling Burma since 1988 — also supported clear-cut logging along the border. Other than providing the junta with revenue (and denying revenue to the KNU, as discussed below), such logging also removed forest in contested areas, thereby eliminating strategic military cover for the KNLA.