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![Text Box: gone. Black cane is the one that has a lot of liquid, so the place where black cane is growing is cool, has a lot of big trees, and the river in this place is never dry”, said a religious elder of Klaw Hta village. He added, "If the cane species are gone, the rivers will fall dry and the next generations will not know that there were once many black canes here." It is clear to the villagers that after the forest is gone the wild animals will also be gone. Pati K' Haw Bleh, from the Dweh Loe township committee said "Now almost all the forests between K' Ma Moe at the Southern tip of Mu Traw district to Pa Pun city are seriously deforested by logging. In the past twenty years, there were a lot of big trees and wild animals. I could see peacocks or hear their crows, but now we can see nor hear them any more."
People can no longer hunt like their ancestors because the animals are disappearing. The Ka Law Hta village headman said “In the past, people hunted using arrows and fished with small nets, but now they use guns and many different tools and techniques, so all the animals are disappearing.”
It is important that the social and ecological problems resulting from non-traditional practices of shifting cultivation are addressed. In the northern parts of the Mu Traw district, shifting cultivation is found to be destructive to the forest because the increasing population of internally displaced persons can no longer follow the traditional methods and practices of rotational cultivation due to the long standing civil war. As a result of their unsustainable practices, more and more pristine forests are badly damaged causing local temperature to rise and water level in the rivers to drop, even leading to dryness. Local people are losing their food security because the premature-used fallow plots deliver reduced yields. Pati Htoo Gay Hai, villager from Kwa Mu Pwa Der village said “Before when we used rotational farming in the mature fallow plots we could get a variety of fruits and vegetables. Rice yield was also good. But now we are very tired struggling with weeds in our degraded land and can't get much fruit to eat like in the past.” Due to the low yields more and more people are facing food shortages and they have to go out and look for food elsewhere.
Impacts on women
The degradation of the forests has special impacts on women. When the forests are gone, the weather becomes hotter and the rivers dry up. The plants that grow near the rivers shrivel and die. Traditionally it is the women, especially the mothers, who collect vegetables in the forest and prepare food for their family. But when these vegetables become rare, women have to go very far searching for them. They have less time and energy for their other duties such as caring for the siblings, animal husbandry and gardening.
Firewood collection is the responsibility of women in the mountainous areas. They usually collect only dried wood, bamboo, or dried branches once a year in the dry/hot season. But as forests are disappearing, firewood gathering is becoming a big problem for the women. They have to devote more time and the returns are less. One of the women in Day Bu Noh village stated that “Before we could get firewood very easy. We didn't need to go far to collect firewood, but now because of more deforestation as well as increasing population [IDPs] in our area, firewood is difficult to find.” Firewood is extremely important for food security. Firewood scarcity and increased collection time can reduce the number of meals cooked in a day, decrease the length of time food is cooked, and decrease the diversity of food eaten. This then leads to decreased nutrition and increases susceptibility to nutritional deficiencies and diseases.
Women have important traditional and religious functions. For example, they have to prepare rice and pack it in certain kinds of leaves for their husband to take to work or to perform ritual ceremonies. They usually use leaves such as La Klue Baw, Ya Baw La (one kind of banana), and P'Dak La (Macaranga denticulata). Shay La Moe, an Aunt elder said: “Before if we needed leaves to pack rice, we found them near our house. There were lots of La Klue Baw leaves. But now they are difficult to find so we have to walk two to three hours to get them.” When they cannot get the right kinds of leaves, they have to use other kinds that are traditionally prohibited such as Ya Wah La (one kind of wild banana), Ya Khea La (one kind of wild banana), La Kya, and La Klue Thue. Women who disregard the traditional prohibitions are always in fear about their fate.](image083.gif)
