Data Corruption: Exposing the True Scale of Logging in Myanmar

By Environmental Investigation Agency • March 26, 2014

The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) released a new briefing Data Corruption: Exposing the true scale of logging in Myanmar, scrutinizing official figures on log harvests and timber exports over the past 15 years.

Shockingly, official export figures for 2000-13 account for only 28 per cent of all recorded international trade in Myanmar logs – suggesting that 72 per cent of log shipments were illicit.

Global buyers reported 22.8 million m3 of log imports from Myanmar, 16.4 million m3 more than claimed in official export statistics. If loaded into freight containers laid end to end, the unauthorised exports would stretch 2.3 times the length of Myanmar’s Irrawaddy River. These illegal exports were worth nearly US$6 billion – four times the combined 2013-14 education and health budgets for the entire country.

EIA also found official harvest volumes over the period constituted merely 53 per cent of reported imports of Myanmar logs, resulting in a 47 per cent illegal logging rate across the country for exports alone.

EIA has called on the Government of Myanmar to:

• vigorously enforce the log export ban effective from April 1, 2014;

• significantly increase transparency in the management of forest resources;

• stop favouring established cronies in forest resource allocation;

• ensure civil society involvement in the planned restructuring of the Forestry Ministry;

• investigate and prosecute companies or Government officials involved in illegal logging and timber smuggling.

Download the full report in English here
Download the full report in Burmese here

အစီရင္ခံစာ ျမန္မာဘာသာကို ဤေနရာတြင္ ေဒါင္းလုပ္ရယူႏိုင္ပါသည္။

Media Contact:
Team Leader Faith Doherty via [email protected] or telephone +44 (0) 20 7354 7960.