As Myanmar works to restructure its national timber authority and adopt a new fiscal calendar, the Southeast Asian country continues to struggle to control illegal logging. The country’s forestry management…
Tropical rainforests are home to the vast majority of the world’s frog species today. Yet frog fossils from these moist environments have been incredibly rare, largely because the small animals…
Eight years ago, researchers described a new species of monkey based on a single dead specimen — an individual that had been hunted from a remote, mountainous forest in Myanmar’s…
At the end of 2017, China announced it had closed down the domestic trade in ivory. Conservation establishment players did victory laps declaring the move a major step in curtailing…
Growing Chinese demand for products made from elephant skin is a rapidly growing threat to the species’ survival in neighboring Myanmar, a new report warns. Over the past decade, Myanmar…
Indigenous and environmental activist Saw O Moo was reportedly killed in Myanmar’s Karen State on April 5. According to the Karen Environmental and Social Action Network (KESAN), Saw O Moo,…
Rubber plantations cover around 86,000 square kilometers (33,200 square miles) in Southeast Asia and conservationists worry they are posing an increasingly major threat to the region’s rainforests. A new study…
LONDON - Illegal teak from Myanmar is still likely entering the supply chains of some major luxury yacht makers and ending up as decking, says one environmental defense organization. In…
Myanmar has pledged to stem the massive tide of charcoal being illegally harvested, produced and exported from their forests to Chinese factories. Last week a senior official from the country’s…
KUTUPALONG, Bangladesh – Look out from the high-ground in the middle of Kutupalong and two sights fill the eyes: Myanmar’s green hills silhouetted in the east and dehydrated, denuded mounds…
Timber that is being illegally logged and smuggled out of Myanmar is ending up as decking on luxury yachts in the UK, according to one group's research. The chain of…
Between America's abandonment of leadership on conservation and environmental policy, Brazil's backtracking on forest conservation, massive forest fires worldwide, and the revelation of a sharp increase in global forest loss…
TANINTHARYI, Myanmar — When viewed from the bow of a boat, the shoreline near the city of Myeik in southern Myanmar is all green. In every direction, low-slung mangroves blanket…
Large casinos, hotels, shopping malls and markets flourish in Southeast Asia's Golden Triangle — the area where Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar converge. These gambling halls and markets, known to be…
An investigation has revealed a major Dutch timber company placed illegally sourced teak from Myanmar on the European market, prompting the Dutch Food and Safety Authority to rule the company…
YANGON, Myanmar – It has been a good year for U Tint Khaing, the assistant director of the Forest Department overseeing action in Yangon. His team seized an estimated 1,500…
NORTHERN SHAN STATE, Myanmar - Looking back, it just seemed natural for Aung Tin Oo* to become a timber smuggler. Especially given that he hails from a central trading point…
BHAMO, Myanmar – Bhamo is a small, busy town set on the bank of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar’s Kachin state. Its location – at the juncture between the river…
KATHA, Myanmar – The train rocked from side to side like a sketchy funhouse. It was the rainy season in northern Myanmar and we had been traveling for nearly a…
BHAMO, Myanmar – A trader turns off his truck’s engine at yet another checkpoint and, again, the soldiers ask him for cash. His truck is filled with charcoal from Myanmar,…
In January this year, scientists described a new species of ape – a white-browed gibbon that lives in the remote forests of the Gaoligong Mountains on the border of China…
In a tiny, remote region of Myanmar, scientists have discovered 19 new species of strikingly patterned geckos. These lizards were found in isolated limestone hills and towers (known as karst)…
Reporting on the plight of wild tigers (Panthera tigris) generally doesn’t lead us down very many pleasant paths. Poaching, habitat loss and the decimation of their natural prey has led…
A new elephant poaching "crisis" is emerging in Myanmar, WWF announced yesterday. In addition to targeting wild elephants for their tusks, poachers are now killing elephants for their skin. The…
HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam – After several weeks of silence, the Vietnamese government announced that it is working to begin an investigation into allegations of widespread illegal logging in…
ALAUNGDAW KATHAPA NATIONAL PARK, Myanmar - Pyar Aung still remembers the first time he saw a chainsaw. It was a German-made number being used by one of the logging companies operating…
MANDALAY, Myanmar - As darkness fell in the forests of central Myanmar on a rainy evening last July, May Thu and her husband Myint Swe*, were wrapping up their day’s…
Devi Thant Cin lives on one of the most prestigious roads in Myanmar, just a few feet from the famous Shwedagon Pagoda and next to the tomb of the country’s…
While 2016 lacked the drama of Indonesia's 2015 fire and haze crisis, surging deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest and ongoing destruction of forests for industrial plantations meant that it was…
Massive forest fires in the Congo and Amazon, surging deforestation in Brazil, and tentative steps toward reform in Indonesia and Myanmar: there were no shortage of major happenings in tropical…
