A good article that criticize the actual political situations in forestry for sustainable development, before the year 1996 in Myanmar. I read this paper again and again, and admire the work done by author.
The Greening of Burma: Political Rhetoric or Sustainable Development?
Much has been written of late about the concept of sustainable development. The subject of growing conceptual and methodological debate, this all-encompassing concept has become established as the "development truism" of our times. Defined notably by the World Commission on Environment and Development in 1987 as development that "meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs," the concept of sustainable development is increasingly understood today as a policy-related objective that broadly aims to reconcile human use of the environment with the latter's long-term conservation. Yet as states around the world seek to implement sustainable development policies in keeping with commitments undertaken at the Rio Earth Summit in June 1992, there is a need to consider whether current policy initiatives constitute the basis for real change or are simply political rhetoric designed to reinforce the status quo.
A starting point for such research is necessarily the recognition that the implementation of sustainable development policies is an intensely, and inevitably political, process. It stands to reason that, if policies that lead to unsustainable development require political explanation, then so too must policies predicated on sustainable development be seen in a similarly political light. In this view, policies that promote, say, reforestation are no less political in their meaning and impact than are those policies that result in deforestation. However, there is a surprising lack of systematic research on the politics of environmental conservation generally, and sustainable development in particular, although work by political ecologists is beginning to reflect an interest in this subject.
This essay seeks to contribute to this political-ecology literature. It uses a Burmese case study to explore some of the implications of viewing sustainable development as a political process. The Burmese state has recently launched an ambitious environmental management programme that promotes sustainable development in keeping with official commitments made at the Earth Summit. As this essay shows, however, Burma's leaders have adopted a decidedly narrow understanding of the concept of sustainable development. In effect, "sustainable development" is largely equated with the promotion of a commercially based long-term forestry strategy that purports to elaborate scientific forestry practices developed during the colonial era. In this manner, these leaders seek to promote a "green" image at home and abroad, while side-stepping politically contentious and difficult issues that would inevitably arise if a broader understanding of sustainable development was accepted.
The main argument of this essay is that Burma's rulers have embraced the concept of sustainable development in the belief that such a strategy holds important political benefits, rather than as a result of concern about environmental degradation per se. Indeed, Burma's "sustainable development" programme needs to be situated in a wider context of ongoing selective environmental degradation arising from state policies and practices. Such degradation is linked broadly to Burma's strong economic dependency on the natural resources sector, but also reflects the personal, political and economic interests of the country's leadership. The "contradictions" associated with the introduction of a sustainable development programme in the absence of fundamental political and economic change are thus emphasized in this essay using a Burma case study. I suggest that the Burmese programme simultaneously constitutes political rhetoric (covering a business-as-usual approach) and real policy change (linked mainly to a quest for enhanced political control over a restless population). The implementation of sustainable development policies is thus seen as a political process that operates, and needs to be understood, at several different levels.
The essay is divided into four parts, and begins with an overview of Burmese forestry management and policies prior to September 1988 when the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) took power. The SLORC's subsequent policy interventions in the forestry sector to promote the official goal of sustainable development are then reviewed. That such interventions have not resulted in the elimination of destructive state-sponsored natural resource practices is next considered, before the essay concludes with an assessment of the broader implications of the Burma case study for understanding the politics of sustainable development in the Third World.
FORESTRY MANAGEMENT PRIOR TO 1988
To understand environmental management under SLORC rule, it is first necessary to review forestry policies and practices prior to September 1988. The privileged position of forestry in Burmese environmental management dates from pre-colonial times, and is linked to the country's extensive and widely used forests. Yet the mechanisms of state control that underpin current initiatives were established largely in the colonial era.
Forestry in colonial Burma was shaped by the importation of a system of scientific forestry from Germany in 1856. In that year, the governor general of British India (of which Burma was part) the Marquis of Dalhousie, ordered the creation of a forest department under the direction of the German botanist turned forester Dietrich Brandis. This event was a mile- stone in colonial forestry in Burma because previously a "laissez-faire" policy had been the norm. Under this system, European and Burmese contractors enjoyed unimpeded access to the teak forests of Tenasserim, but the ensuing devastation prompted Dalhousie's order.
State intervention in the guise of scientific forestry transformed Burmese forest politics. Prior to British rule, forest regulation by Burma's kings was rudimentary. In contrast, scientific forestry sought to transform Burma's forests along rational and commercial lines through systematic state management. Hailed as a landmark in the history of Burmese forest management by the British, it has also been viewed favourably by Burmese foresters since independence.
Scientific forestry in Burma sought to ensure the long-term commercial development of the teak forests. A prime commercial timber, teak was used widely in colonial times to construct naval vessels. An integral part of the new system was the restriction of popular access to teak forest through the mechanism of a network of state reserves created after 1870. This step adversely affected the ability of local Burmese to hunt, collect honey, graze cattle and extract timber. Under the (mistaken) impression that fire hampered teak growth, the British were especially keen to prevent the use of fire in the forests.
Shifting cultivators of Karen ethnic origin living in the teak forests were of particular concern. Horrified that these cultivators burned teak to clear fields for agriculture, forest officials attempted to persuade them to alter a "destructive" lifestyle. Using a strategy that enticed (emoluments) as well as intimidated (fines), imperial foresters convinced many Karen to join a reforestation scheme known as taungya forestry. Under this scheme, cultivators cleared the forest as before but now planted teak as they grew their crops. The result was a string of teak plantations left in their wake rather than fallow lands to which they would one day return. Colonial officials thus sought to transform the Karen "from an antagonistic nuisance to forest conservancy into the most loyal servants of the department."
The British also regulated non-teak forest use. The use of commercial timbers like pyinkado (Xylia dolabriformis), padauk (Pterocarpus macrocarpus) and thitka (Pentace burmanica), and non-timber forest products such as cutch (the boiled heartwood of the sha [Acacia catechu] tree used for tanning and dyeing) and bamboo was regulated from 1870. In the early 1900s, the protection of important watersheds through the regulation of shifting cultivation in these areas was also attempted. These considerations were nonetheless subsidiary to the main teak interest.
Colonial forestry policies met with fierce opposition from Burmese peasants, shifting cultivators and timber traders. Peasants denied access to the forests stole forest produce, grazed cattle illegally, and set fire to teak trees. Shifting cultivators cleared forest illegally and fled to monarchical Burma (prior to 1885) and Siam (Thailand). Burmese timber traders colluded with peasants living near forests to obtain illegal timber. Following the First World War, such resistance intensified, and imperial forestry became a favourite target of nationalists such as U Saw and U Chit Hlaing. These politicians denounced in the colonial Legislative Council as well as on the electoral hustings a system that was "not in the Burmese interest," yet British foresters remained convinced that they were doing "a magnificent work for Burma" in managing the country's forests in the manner that they did.
Burmese foresters concurred with the latter's assessment, and colonial-style scientific forestry has remained the lodestar of Burmese forestry since independence. Yet these officials faced an uphill battle in restoring a forestry system that fell largely into disuse during the Second World War. Following independence on 4 January 1948, they could only watch helplessly as the country's forests became the battleground over which government and insurgent armies fought for control of the nation's affairs. Although order was largely restored in central low-lying areas following Burmese army victories in the 1950s, this development had the effect of concentrating insurgents in hilly, forested areas, thereby complicating the efforts of foresters to resume regular operations. Indeed, such were the dangers facing these officials, that a system of "forestry on the run" was instituted in which operations took place under military cover. Forestry in key forests in the Pegu Yoma (south-central Burma) and northern Burma could be managed for only short periods as a result of the need for heavily armed guards." The opportunities for forest management depended on the vicissitudes of war, but chronic insecurity was a feature of management until the mid-1970s. During this time, the forest department was unable to reintroduce forestry along colonial lines as it wished.
By the mid-1970s, the Burmese military under General Ne Win had acquired control over most of central Burma, and thereafter pushed insurgents into remote border areas. As "order" was thus reestablished, foresters resumed the management of these areas, especially in the Pegu Yoma. Yet the re-imposition of state control highlighted tensions within the Burmese state over forest management that have persisted to this day. On the one hand, the Forest Department possesses formal authority to manage the forests in keeping with scientific forestry. Until 1992 when a new Forest Law was passed (see below), that authority was derived from the 1902 Forest Act (itself a revision of the 1881 Burma Forest Act). It has used that authority to protect reserved forests from encroachment by villagers or shifting cultivators. Popular access restrictions thus remain at the heart of forestry in post-colonial Burma.
On the other hand, pressure from Burma's leaders to maximize revenue has meant that foresters have been unable to balance forest exploitation and conservation. The Forest Department's difficulties are associated with the ability of the state Timber Corporation (Myanma Timber Enterprise after 1989) to fell trees with relative impunity, even when such actions have been in defiance of the law. Established in 1950 as a result of the nationalization of the European timber trade in Burma, the Timber Corporation grew in the 1950s and early 1960s as the need for revenue increased. However, it was after March 1962 - and the military coup by General Ne Win that ushered in the "Burmese Way to Socialism" - that this agency's ability to control most aspects of forest use was realized. By the mid- 1960s teak and non-teak timber production was nationalized, and even the production of non-timber forest products came under state control. In the process, conflict over forest exploitation (Timber Corporation) and conservation (Forest Department) was institutionalized, and has since regularly found expression in disputes over where, when and which trees to cut.
Burma's forests have thus been the focus of long-standing conflict between state and non-state groups, and at times between agencies within the state itself, over who is to control those forests. Yet such conflict does not figure in SLORC accounts of Burmese forestry. Rather those accounts extoll the virtues of a traditional system of scientific forestry described as the basis of current efforts to promote sustainable development." Nonetheless the SLORC has not simply reiterated the virtues of colonial forestry, but rather has promoted a package of measures to attain "sustainable development." The practical significance of this policy shift remains unclear. Do the new policies represent a move to entrench colonial-style forestry at the heart of a comprehensive set of sustainable development policies? Or are they simply a rhetorical response to international pressure in a post-Rio world designed to conceal a business-as-usual approach in which environ- mental conservation remains subordinate to development concerns? The next two sections address these questions before considering the general implications of the Burmese experience for the politics of sustainable development in the Third World.
FORESTRY POLICIES UNDER THE SLORC
The SLORC's keen interest in environmental issues occurs against a backdrop of political and economic turmoil that has persisted since the junta took power on September 18, 1988. It has adopted an uncompromising stance on political order and national unity, as well as the need for the army to play a permanently central role in Burmese national politics. Having ignored the May 1990 election result (which would have brought Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy to power), the SLORC has justified its continued rule in "non-political" ways, notably through the promotion of selective and partial economic opening to the outside world. It has also mounted a vigorous campaign to rewrite history through a series of books that emphasize the centrality of the army in Burma's past. Less well known is the manner in which the SLORC's environmental policies also reflect the need for legitimation in a context of ongoing national and international political dissent and criticism.
The SLORC has moved quickly since 1990 on the environmental front. In only a few years, it has created new policies, committees and projects designed to green the country. The first major initiative was the creation of the National Commission for Environmental Affairs (NCEA) in February 1990. The NCEA is chaired by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and comprises cabinet ministers and senior government officials. Its two principal functions are policy development and coordination, as well as liaising with international agencies as part of meeting Burma's external treaty obligations. In a country where the environmental impacts of state and non-state practices have hitherto gone largely unmonitored, and the implementation of international agreements has been erratic, the NCEA is, in theory at least, a committee of considerable importance. In practice, the NCEA delegates its work to specialized subcommittees which meet three or four times a year to discuss problems and proposed solutions relating to the conservation of natural resources, the control of pollution, research, information and educational matters, and international cooperation. The main task of the NCEA has been to formulate a National Environmental Policy, the general aim of which is to provide environmental data and guidance to government agencies and private companies, notably through environ- mental impact assessments." The policy is also supposed to integrate hitherto disconnected sectoral policies, and ensure that environmental policy is developed generally in keeping with the national commitment to sustainable development. Finally, it is to promote research and development and public awareness on sustainable development. The National Environmental Policy, in turn, is to serve as the framework within which a series of environmental laws and regulations will be subsequently enacted.
The creation of the NCEA and the associated quest to develop a National Environmental Policy would appear to be based on the perceived need for top-level involvement in the promotion of sustainable development policies. Such involvement signals the determination of Burma's leadership to pursue its environmental agenda - and to be seen to be doing so. It also reflects a recognition by the SLORC that sustainable development will not be possible without full cooperation between different branches of the state or between the state and civil society. In other words, the coordination of state and non-state economic activities is seen to be a sine qua non for sustainable development in Burma. It is too early to tell, though, whether this high-level intervention is permanent, and, more importantly, whether it will succeed in its professed goals in the face of ongoing pressures to retain the political and economic status quo.
The apparent intent of the SLORC to pursue a national agenda based on the promotion of sustainable development is above all reflected in a series of new policies and projects in the forestry sector. The key measure in this regard was the enactment of a new Forest Law in November 1992 to replace the 1902 Forest Act. In keeping with the regime's favourable view of colonial scientific forestry, the new law replicates much that is in the old law. Yet the new law goes beyond its predecessor insofar as it explicitly links forestry management to social and environmental considerations." Chapter 2, for example, specifies a series of basic principles that include traditional commercial timber management concerns, but also the themes of environmental conservation, public participation, and international commitments. Other chapters of the new law explore how considerations such as biodiversity conservation, watershed protection, and encouragement for the private sector are to be taken into account in forestry practices.
As a follow-up to the 1992 Forest Law, the SLORC instructed the Forest Department to draft a National Forest Policy which emphasizes the integration of the goals of timber production, wildlife and environmental conservation, the role of the private sector in the timber industry, the maintenance of biological diversity and social forestry.16 To meet these goals, the area set aside as state reserved forest is to be increased from 14 percent to 30 percent of the total national forested area, while the land set aside as protected area (ie., parks, upper watershed areas) is to climb from just over 1 percent to 5 percent of the total forested area. As much of forested central Burma is already enclosed in reserves, the growth in reserved area will occur mainly in peripheral regions long subject to insurgency, notably in the northern Kachin state where a ceasefire with the Kachin Independence Organisation has been in effect since February 1994. The surrender of Khun Sa's Mong Tai army at Homong in early January 1996 raises the prospect of further reservation, this time in the war-torn eastern Shan State long largely off-limits to the Forest Department.
The promotion of sustainable development in the forestry sector is also reflected in a concern to promote wildlife conservation. Thus, the Wild Life, Natural Forests and Nature Preservation Law (1994) replaces the 1936 colonial Wildlife Act, and is designed to complement the 1992 Forest Law by linking wildlife protection to forest maintenance. The Wild Life and Sanctuaries Division of the Forest Department is responsible for enforcing the law." Burma's participation in international for a on tiger and wild elephant conservation is designed to reiterate the SLORC's practical commitment in this area. To the extent that such a commitment is kept, it constitutes a welcome departure from the relative neglect of wildlife concerns that has long characterized forestry management in Burma. Yet, such initiatives need to be evaluated in light of SLORC policies that have directly or indirectly contributed to the growth of an illegal wildlife trade that is threatening to wipe out the remaining populations of rare species such as gibbons or nestling parrots at the same time as SLORC-inspired deforestation eliminates the habitat upon which such wildlife depend for their survival.
The SLORC's environmental agenda is also reflected in a new found willingness to participate actively in international agreements and organizations. A signatory to both the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biodiversity, as well as a participant in the Global Environmental Facility, Burma decided to join the International Tropical Timber Organisation (an organization of timber exporting and importing countries based in Japan) in 1993, and is drawing up a national Tropical Forestry Action Plan. These various domestic and international efforts bespeak a regime keenly aware of the need for policy change in keeping with sustainable development objectives. Yet it is one thing to create new laws, policies and committees, but quite another matter to implement change. To what extent are the SLORC's environmental interests reflected in change on the ground?
Perhaps the best example of the new policies in action is to be found in the current large-scale efforts to "green" Burma's central Dry Zone (i.e., the region south and west of Mandalay). This project covers forty-two town- ships in nine drought-prone districts and is funded to the extent of Kyat 102.6 million (U.S.$1 million) by the government. The impact of such funds is far greater than the nominal sum might indicate since the cost of labour provided by government officials, the army, and, above all, private citizens is not reflected in the figures. The project itself addresses fuel wood short- ages in this densely populated part of the country as part of a wider attempt to halt associated deforestation and other environmental degradation.18 Between 1994/95 and 1996/97,51,300 acres of fuel wood plantations will be created composed of species such as sha and tama (Azadirachta indica) used by villagers. In a departure from colonial times, these plantations are technically to be owned and managed by local communities and not by the state. However, the meaning of local ownership and management has not been clarified by the government, and thus its legal and political significance remains unclear.
The SLORC accords top priority to the greening project. Three senior military officers are in charge, and national, regional and township committees composed of the relevant civil and military officials coordinate project implementation. In addition, military units are helping villagers with the preparation of plantation sites. The SLORC is also using the state- controlled media to mount a major public education campaign. The only daily national newspaper, The New Light of Myanmar, reports regularly and extensively on the project. Myanmar TV is also used to put across the SLORC's message, and a Ministry of Forestry documentary on the "Green and Lush Nine Districts" has been broadcast. Finally, information pamphlets are widely disseminated nationally, and posters extoll the benefits of reforestation in the affected districts themselves.
The SLORC is also mobilizing the mass participation of the public in the greening project. Civil and military officials are involved, but it is villagers in the nine districts who are doing most of the work. Such mass participation is designed to guarantee the state a supply of labour and inculcate a conservationist ethos among the public, and is deemed to be "voluntary" by the state. However, and as with other large-scale projects initiated by the SLORC (i.e., the six-lane highway linking Rangoon to Pegu; the refurbishment of Mandalay), participation is compulsory and unpaid." Although "participation" may mean different things in different cultural contexts, the coercive nature of mass participation programmes in Burma is indicative of the widespread opposition to such SLORC strong-arm tactics. Indeed, the greening project would not be possible without the forced labour of thousands of villagers in the nine districts.
The greening project is significant precisely because it is a concrete manifestation of what the SLORC means when it speaks of the implementation of sustainable development policies in Burma. When taken in conjunction with the series of laws, policies, committees and international agreements being developed or acceded to by the government, there can be little doubting the political commitment of the regime to action in keeping with something it calls "sustainable development." Yet that commitment sits uneasily with regard to the human rights violations on which it is partly based. It also appears decidedly curious in light of the "highly destructive" environmental practices associated with other SLORC policies. The greening project (and the Forest Law and National Forest Policy associated with it) is useful to the SLORC because it represents an effective means to pro- mote environmental conservation in a politically and economically important part of the country at the same time as it provides a justification for tightened political control over this area. In this manner, "coercive conservation" in Burma, as elsewhere in the Third World, is designed simultaneously to meet environmental and political objectives. Nonetheless, "coercive conservation" in aid of sustainable development is only part of an overall picture of environmental management in Burma characterized by state-sanctioned unsustainable practices.
"BuSINESS-AS-USUAL" IN THE FORESTS
Although Burma is renowned for its scientific forestry, it also possesses a long history of deforestation that finds its counterpart in selected con- temporary practices. Notwithstanding SLORC claims that Burmese environmental management is consonant with the pursuit of sustainable development, there are "contradictions" in this strategy rooted in Burma's long-standing role as a major natural-resource producing country. This role was elaborated under colonial rule as selective forest protection in the hills went hand-in-hand with the widespread clearance of low-lying forest, especially in the Irrawaddy Delta of southern Burma.21 Following independence, the combination of civil war and inward-looking economic policies (notably between 1962 and 1972) gave the country's forests a partial reprieve. While the state in such countries as the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand encouraged deforestation in the quest for rapid economic development, the Burmese state followed a socialist industrial development path which impoverished the country's citizens but also temporarily slowed the rate of forest loss. Yet, the "Burmese Way to Socialism" did not alter Burma's over- whelming economic dependency on natural resource production (especially rice, timber and minerals). Further, and as a result of decades of chronic economic mismanagement on the part of the Burmese state, the country had built up a national debt of about U.S. $6 billion by the late 1980s that the country's leaders were not in a position to repay. It is in this context that the SLORC has embarked on a more outward-oriented development strategy since the late 1980s. However, the combination of a natural-resource dependent economy and a substantial national debt has meant that intensive natural resource exploitation has been one of the only options open to the state if both the debt problem and Burma's under- developed status are to be addressed. Yet such exploitation poses serious problems for the regime's professed goals of sustainable development.
Indeed, the depletion of Burma's forests has accelerated in the measure that the government has intensified their exploitation. Burma's rate of deforestation in the late 1980s was about six thousand square kilometres per year, among the highest such rates in the world. To be sure, this figure included deforestation resulting from shifting cultivation which cannot necessarily be blamed on the state. Yet the link between state policies and deforestation is nevertheless strong, and there is little to indicate that much has changed in the 1990s. Indeed, as noted below, planned "mega-projects" threaten to accelerate forest destruction in the near future.
At a general level, changes in Burma's forest cover partly conform to a centre-periphery pattern with selective reforestation at the centre (e.g., greening project) accompanied by widespread deforestation at the periphery. A green image is thus cultivated at the centre, while at the periphery, the SLORC has sold "Burma's natural resources like fast food." In addition to economic considerations, peripheral deforestation may also have reflected a military objective of denying strategic forest cover to ethnic insurgents - for example, in areas contested with the Karen National Union and the New Mon State party along the Thai-Burmese border in the early 1990s. Yet the situation is more complex than this, and needs to take into account overexploitation in central areas as well.
The best known example of the SLORC's unsustainable environmental management practices relates to the Thai logging deals of 1989-1993. These deals, concluded between the Burmese state and Thai business and government interests, specified the logging of commercial (mostly teak) forest along the Thai-Burmese border. Burma's interest was mainly in generating foreign exchange at a time when aid and loans from the First World had been cut off following the September 1988 "coup," but may also have reflected the aforementioned military objective. The Thai interest was related to the need to find new sources of timber as supplies in Thailand ran out in the late 1980s. Within three months of the SLORC "coup," Thailand's senior general, Chaovalit Yongchaiyuth, visited the SLORC leader General Saw Maung in Rangoon. In early 1989, Burma announced twenty logging concessions to Thai firms along the border, and further con- cessions were thereafter awarded to Thai firms affiliated with the Thai military. As much as 18,800 square kilometres was thus alienated to forty- seven companies.24 These logging deals were a concrete manifestation of the "constructive engagement" policy that Thailand has pursued with regard to Burma since the advent of SLORC rule in 1988.
These deals have had a major social and environmental impact in the border areas. At the logging sites themselves, Thai loggers set about clear- felling the hillsides. A combination of careless logging and poor road construction led to extensive deforestation, soil erosion, siltation and flooding. Further, the logging facilitated the growth of an illegal wildlife trade. Gibbons, Asiatic black bears, nestling parrots, and other endangered species have been taken to Thailand along the logging roads (often in logging vehicles) leading some to blame the SLORC for enabling such a trade to occur in a hitherto remote area.25 However, the impact of logging extends well beyond the logging sites. As Thai loggers entered the forests to begin extraction in their concessions, Karen and other ethnic minorities had to move from these areas. Cultivation was then taken up in fragile upland areas generally unsuited to intensive farming (and hitherto avoided by these cultivators for that reason). The resulting forest clearance has led to soil erosion, river siltation and downstream flooding.
The SLORC formally terminated the Thai logging deals in December 1993, ostensibly due to illegal logging by concessionaires. A more likely explanation centres on the reduced dependency of the SLORC on this particular source of revenue.26 Less of a need to remove forest cover for military reasons in light of Burmese army advances (and the fact that large areas had already been cleared) may also have played a role in this decision. Whatever the reason, forest clearance continues in this area due to SLORC actions, albeit at a reduced level. Local army officers, for example, routinely force villagers to fell timber in defiance of the Forest Law. The villagers are not paid for their labour, and the wood is typically sold for profit by officers in nearby towns.
Other border areas are also affected by SLORC policies that result in unsustainable logging. For example, the regime has encouraged timber overharvesting in the northern Kachin State. This remote region had been controlled by the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) since the early 1960s. Following Burmese army advances, however, the SLORC has been able to tap into the exploitation of local natural resources as part of expanding trade relations with China. Logging in Kachin State has received little inter- national attention, but this situation is likely to change as the 1994 ceasefire between the SLORC and the KIA results in the lifting of residual restrictions on local logging. Indeed, Burmese army officers are reportedly cooperating with local militias in clear-cut logging at the Kambaiti Pass and other areas. Such activities are linked to intensified local flooding events.
Yet it is not only in border areas that SLORC-inspired unsustainable logging is occurring. In a practice that sharply contradicts SLORC claims that scientific forestry is the norm today, teak overharvesting is common in the Pegu Yoma. Described as "one of the most valuable forests in the world," these teak forests have been regularly overcut since the Burmese army regained control of the area in the mid-1970s. Two factors in particular have been behind this overharvesting. First, the Myanmar Timber Enterprise has sold teak exports in advance to improve cash flows; in 1991 the discrepancy between advance sale and delivery was two years. This practice resulted in severe pressure to overcut teak in accessible areas. Second, there resulted in severe pressure to overcut teak in accessible areas. Second, the way in which calculations of the annual allowable cut have been applied exacerbates the pressure on accessible forests such as those in the Pegu Yoma. An annual allowable cut is calculated based on the entire national teak forest (including forests off-limits due to insurgency) but is applied unmodified to the accessible areas. This practice has resulted in a serious teak overcut in accessible forests. Indeed, as "the forests have been systematically mined for years," a national teak shortage is predicted for early in the next century.
This looming teak shortage is hastened as a result of the practices of the Burmese army. Senior army members are active in the country's illegal logging trade which makes a mockery of all attempts to uphold the Forest Law. Examples from the border areas have already been noted, but such practices occur regularly throughout the country, and are seen as an unspo- ken "fact of life" amongst forest officials.3" Notwithstanding the occasional well-publicized crackdown on illegal logging by army officers (designed to deter unsanctioned logging), the SLORC is using such practices as a means to ensure the loyalty of the armed forces. As with other sectors of the economy, therefore, the SLORC is using control over logging (especially teak) as an important source of political patronage. Such patronage also relates to "legal" logging activities linked to the small but growing private sector. As noted above, a goal of the present forestry initiative is to incorporate a role for private enterprise in forestry. That role has been the subject of much internal debate, but the SLORC's commitment to a partial privatization (i.e., non-teak forestry) is not in any doubt; as Forestry Minister Lieutenant- General Chit Swe explains, the ultimate goal is "to nurture a responsible private sector. " That private sector is closely wed to the SLORC itself with reports of SLORC members or their families being involved in timber exports to neighbouring countries. It would appear, therefore, that in the forestry sector, as in other economic sectors, the SLORC is taking Burma down a path already taken by other South-East Asian countries. Burmese-style "crony capitalism" is fast becoming the norm in the country. In the process, claims of sustainable development in the forestry sector appear as hollow in Burma as they do in Indonesia, the country upon which Burmese political and economic development appears to be increasingly modeled.
Further evidence of the questionable significance of SLORC claims of sustainable development in Burma is provided from non-logging economic activities which also adversely affect the nation's forests. Logging has contributed to environmental degradation but other projects to develop Burma's natural resources will place an added strain on the environment. Projects to construct dams and a natural gas pipeline in the east and south- east of the country will have the greatest impact. Previous Burmese dams have been relatively small-scale when compared with dams constructed else- where in the Third World. New plans will change all of that. To tap Burma's enormous hydroelectric potential, the SLORC will construct a series of large dams on rivers along the Thai-Burmese border, but these dams pose a grave threat to residual border forests. The proposed 166-metre-high dam on the upper Salween river is causing most concern among environmentalists." This dam will supply Thailand with electricity (earning the SLORC a sizable income), but would flood an extensive forested area and force many Karen from their homes.
A more immediate environmental threat is associated with the planned development of the country's natural gas resources. The recent discovery of two major offshore natural gas fields in the Andaman Sea has been a boon for the SLORC. In conjunction with Texaco (U.S.A.), Nippon Oil (Japan), Total (France) and Unocal (U.S.A.), plans to exploit these fields are well in hand. The SLORC is building a pipeline across the hitherto remote and densely forested southern Tenasserim hills to the Thai village of Pilok in Khanchanburi province where it will be joined to a pipeline being constructed by the Petroleum Authority of Thailand. The pipeline cuts through biologically diverse forest, but an environmental impact assessment has not been conducted. Indeed, environmental degradation is an integral feature of the project as forest is cleared extensively along the proposed route. Related infrastructure development, notably the construction of a railway between Ye and Tavoy to facilitate the transport of construction materials and military personnel to the pipeline site, is exacerbating environmental degradation in the area.
The preceding discussion highlights many of the contradictions in the SLORC's strategy for sustainable development. However, a final point needs to be made in relation to the link between sustainable development and the protection of human rights. Kate Geary and Martin Smith argue that such development is impossible in contexts where political repression and human rights abuses flourish.37 They argue that human rights abuses and environmental degradation go hand in hand in Burma. There is clear evidence (some mentioned in this essay) to support this argument. However, this essay has further shown that there is also a link in Burma between human rights abuses and environmental conservation measures. Thus, the greening project uses forced labour to achieve the otherwise laudable goals of fuel wood provision and reforestation in the Dry Zone. Such "coercive conservation" may be the norm in the future as states in the Third World seek to promote sustainable development "efficiently"; the Burmese experience may thus be symptomatic of a broader trend.
CONCLUSION
This essay has explored the politics of sustainable development in Burma with special reference to the forestry sector. It has emphasized the contradictory nature of this process. On the one hand, the SLORC has introduced a whole series of new laws, committees and projects designed to establish a policy framework within which to pursue sustainable development. The greening project, in particular, provides tangible, if yet limited evidence of the practical commitment of the regime to environmental conservation (albeit tainted by questions over human rights practices). On the other hand, the SLORC is promoting rapid economic development based on intensive use of the country's natural resources in what may be seen as a "business-as-usual" approach, but now on a larger and more destructive scale. In both cases, the regime has been concerned to enhance political and economic control over the people and environments located within the national territory. The SLORC is actively involved directly or indirectly in the major activities that impinge on Burma's forests, including environmental degradation (e.g., logging, pipeline construction) and environmental conservation (e.g., greening project). In this manner, "sustainable development" policies are inserted into a national context in which the SLORC seeks to maintain a preeminent role for itself in Burma's political economy. The extent to which the SLORC's policies reflect questions of sustainability is thus linked to a broader politics of sustainable development in which rhetoric and change are linked to the political and economic calculations of the country's leadership.
The Burmese experience illustrates generally the contradictions that may be associated with the introduction of sustainable development policies in the Third World. It highlights in the first instance the perils of confusing policy pronouncement with policy implementation. It is easy to forget that official commitments made at the Earth Summit in June 1992 to implement sustainable development policies are only the start of a long process which may or may not result in their actual implementation. Serious political and economic obstacles, moreover, threaten to derail the efforts of even the most well-intentioned of states to attain sustainable development. Thus, the apparent need for comprehensive social and economic changes as a prerequisite for such development flies in the face of the dependence of many Third World countries like Burma on revenue derived from intensive and unsustainable natural resource use. Such revenue has long been critical as a source of funds to promote industrialization, but following the onset of the debt crisis in the 1980s has been needed to maintain debt repayments. Under these circumstances, the political obstacles to any reduction in levels of natural resource exploitation are inevitably immense. Further, and official pronouncements notwithstanding, many Third World leaders are not keen promoters of sustainable development. A reluctance to act may be linked to a wish not to alienate powerful political and economic groups who benefit from the status quo. In Burma, as in such places as Indonesia, Zaire and Brazil, those groups derive power and wealth partly from logging, mining and other economic activities (e.g., dam construction) that degrade the environment.38 The personal interests of political and economic elites may be another political obstacle to the implementation of sustainable development policies.
Yet Third World leaders can no longer afford to ignore criticisms of their country's environmental management records. Indeed, as the Burmese experience shows, even the most un-savoury of political regimes has become adept politically at "playing the environmental card." As in the case of Burma, this may involve a publicity campaign highlighting selectively those environmental policies and projects which it is believed reflect the sustainable development imperative. To take but one example, Malaysia and Indonesia are using the joint establishment of "the largest wet tropical forest reserve in the world" in Borneo as a means to counter criticisms of state-sanctioned destructive logging on that island. Such initiatives reflect in some cases growing domestic political pressure on the state to combat environmental degradation. More importantly, this "greening" of state policies in the Third World is linked to the growing emphasis of First World donor countries on environmental considerations in aid and financial transfers. So-called "green conditionality" requires prospective aid recipients to satisfy the First World (and the international financial institutions) that policies reflect considerations of sustainable development. Even in the case of Burma - a country shunned by donors since 1988 but seeking reintegration in the international community - the prospect of international financial assistance in return for the introduction of sustainable development policies is a powerful inducement for change. There are thus good political reasons for Third World leaders to heed calls for sustainable development, even if the ultimate outcome will be less than an "ideal" solution. Indeed, the likely outcome in Burma and elsewhere in the Third World is a "middle path" or compromise scenario in which policies are associated with an incremental process of change.
What is clear is that such a process of incremental change will place a premium on the way in which sustainable development concerns are incorporated in the political process. The Burmese experience highlights the fact that the implementation of sustainable development policies will occur unevenly reflecting the vicissitudes of political interests and power. These policies may be implemented to give a state a "good name," but increasingly they will reflect a concern for enhanced political control and new income- earning opportunities for elites (e.g., commercial forest plantations, eco- tourism). In the process, the politics of sustainable development is set to become as controversial and divisive as has been the politics associated with the environmental degradation that prompted calls for such development in the first place.
@ Raymond L. Bryan Kings College, University of London, June 1996
Source: Pacific Affairs, Vol. 69, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 341-359
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