Text Box: Destruction and Degradation of the Burmese Frontier Forests Text Box: # Text Box: KNU headquarters in Manerplaw, near the Thai border. The NCUB consisted of members of political parties, and MPs elect (mainly NLD) who had escaped a new wave of arrests after the elections of 1990. In 1989, Wa and Kokang troops mutinied against the Burma CPB leadership. They formed new organisations based along ethnic lines and included the UWSA in Wa-inhabited regions of Shan State, the MNDAA in Kokang in northeast Shan State, the NDAA in eastern Shan State, and the NDA-K in Kachin State. The mutiny spread quickly, and SLORC responded by offering cease-fire agreements to these new groups. The CPB insurgency was effectively ended. The NDF tried to woo the mutineers into their camp but failed. Instead, the military pressure on other ethnic armed groups in the northern Shan State increased. The Shan State Army (in northern Shan State), an NDF member, signed a cease-fire soon afterwards. Other important NDF members, including the Pao National Organisation PNO (near Taunggyi in Shan State) and the Palaung State Liberation Party PSLP (near Hsipaw in Shan State), followed two years later in 1991. The Burmese Army launched new offensives against the remaining NDF members. During 1991-92, heavy fighting took place in the mountains around Manerplaw, the KNU headquarters, but against the expectation of many observers, the KNU managed to hold its ground. The KIO now proposed to start joint negotiations with the SLORC on behalf of the NDF. After failing failed to convince the NDF, the KIO signed a separate cease-fire in February 1994. While the KIO argued that it was better to make a cease-fire first, and then find a political solution, others, including the KNU, wanted to have a political solution first before singing a cease-fire. The KIO was subsequently rejected from the NDF and the DAB. In 1995, two other NDF members, the NMSP and the KNPP, also signed a cease-fire, although the latter broke down after a few months. Pressure on the KNU increased after the breakaway of groups of dissatisfied Buddhists soldiers, who formed the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army (DKBA). The SLORC responded quickly and offered the DKBA aid and territory. This ultimately led to the fall of the KNU’s headquarters in Manerplaw in early 1995. Cease-fire talks between the SLORC and the KNU during 1996-97 failed to produce results. The KNU maintained that it cannot sign a cease-fire without a lasting political solution. During the military offensive of the Burmese army that followed immediately after, the KNU lost the remaining of its territory. It now operates as a guerrilla army from a number of small bases along the Thai border, with small-scale hit and run attacks. By the end of 2003, most of the large armed ethnic opposition groups had signed cease-fire agreements, except for the KNU, the KNPP, and the SSA-South. These organisations are all located along the Thai border. Smaller Chin, Rakhine, Naga and Muslim groups remained active on Myanmar’s northern borders with Bangladesh and India. In early 2004, the KNU and the SPDC made a temporary verbal cease-fire agreement. Logging and civil war During the decades of civil war in Burma, all conflict parties have relied on the extraction of natural resources, mainly by logging and mining, to finance their armies. The scale of logging increased dramatically after SLORC came to power in 1988. The most Text Box: Old DKBA logging camp (Sin Swein area)