Myanmar essay
by Naomi Mori


Myanmar, also as known as former Burma, is a country that is located under China and between India and Thailand. Like many other countries around the world, Myanmar has many environmental problems that need to be taken care of. The top three environmental issues of Myanmar are the deforestation, water pollution, and threats of biodiversity.
Although Myanmar’s forests covered 48 percent of the country in 2010, it has been losing over 1percent of forest cover each year since 1990, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s 2011 State of the World’s Forests report (“MYANMAR: Deforestation threatens breadbasket”). Myanmar’s massive cutting of the trees is caused to meet for the needs as various things like firewood, and roofs of the locals, and the foreign trade. According to “A Choice of China,” issued by the Global Witness, it is said that the Myanmar’s neighbor and great trader, China’s concern for its own environmental deforestation with the continuing demand of trees is pushing the deforestation of Myanmar even forward. The local’s lack of awareness in this problem and the government’s corruption is problematic factor of the continuing deforestation too. The deforestation is the most important environmental issue of Myanmar because it affects many other environmental issues, like the First Law of Ecology that everything affects everything. At the same time that the deforestation means that the tree resource is decreasing and is at the level to need the import from other countries, it means that serious issue such as land-degradation is being caused. After trees have been cut down poorly and massively, dry area will be eroded. The erosion makes the soil bad, and the agricultures don’t grow well either. Therefore, the impact of deforestation in Myanmar is very large.
The water pollution is second important environmental issue in Myanmar. According to the report of “Integrating Environmental Considerations into Economic Policy Making Processes in Myanmar,” the inland water bodies like natural lakes, reservoirs, river systems, and ponds combined, with the annual rainfall provides the extremely large amount of water in the whole country of Myanmar. However, as the population of the country increased and economic activities grew, the demand for the water increased. But, the inland water is being polluted and extraction of enough underground water sources is not very successful. The water pollution is a problem because every human being in the country will need to drink water, and polluted water with virus can cause diseases. Moreover, this issue needs to be paid close attention right now because the degree of the water pollution from the industry or agriculture had been at relatively minimal level so far, but is expected to be changed in near future; the industrial expansion is expected and large industrial use of chemical would cause larger pollution issue in Myanmar.
The third important environment issue is the threat in biodiversity. Myanmar, so called Burma, was known to have beautiful nature and various animals. However, the biodiversity is being lost with many human actions. According to the myanmardiversity.org, there are varieties of animals that are listed in the endangered species list in Myanmar, such as tigers, elephants, turtles, and dolphins. It is not just animal but also plants. Many of them are disappearing because of human action like hunting and the illegal trade, especially in tigers. Also, the deforestation is affecting this issue too. The deforestation avoids forest from playing the role as the habitat of various animals. Therefore, the mountains that are their natural habitat are being preserved. More study to conserve these species is needed too. The order of important environmental issues in Myanmar, which is deforestation, water pollution, and threat to biodiversity, is listed in same order on the United Nation’s Environment Performance report too (http://www.mm.undp.org).
On the issues of deforestation, collecting accurate data on the tropical forests around the world was difficult thing until recently, according to UNEP Regional Resource Centre for Asia and the Pacific. Now, the informational technology is developed with using satellite remote sensing and geographical information system, and they can provide the new ways for observation and understanding of the Earth’s resources. The Regional Coordinator of UNEP Environment Assessment Program for Asia and the Pacific is coordinating the project called, the TREES (Tropical Ecosystem Environment Observation by Satellites) Project. It was established in 1991 to collect the most accurate and newest data of the Earth’s tropical forest. It interprets the historical and recent satellite images as digital files, file that contain change matrix, digital copies of the remote sensing data, and digital copy of other data-layers and data-base and therefore lead to better understanding of the tropical forest (“Monitoring Deforestation in Myanmar”).
As for the water pollution, if Airplanes are classified as type of the Information Technology, it might be the information technology that will make the situation worse. With more open entrance of the airplanes from outside of Yangon, Myanmar, this country will most likely be more industrially activated. It already carries many businessmen from outside of the country that is looking for good deals and opportunities for possible factories. Then, the fear of worsening water pollution will become true. Since people inside of Myanmar will most not likely are going to use airplanes to make the fast plan against pollution, it is possible that the industry and worse pollution will happen before anti-pollution plans are put together.
On the issue of the threats to biodiversity, there are many kinds of network system that is made to protect the endangered species. According to myanmarbiodiversity.org, the communication Information Technologies are used in those network systems between people. Posting on internet about what kind of species are illegal and what is legal needs the internet, the information technology. The technology from organizations to prevent it is needed for the threats of biodiversity issue to be solved.
Considering the all top three issues, the concern was that those environmental problems are not well recognized by the locals or ignored by the government officials for money. Using the information technology nowadays, it is possible to present them the accurate data of what is really going on and how important those issues are. However, it is still difficult to change people’s values just by presenting the accurate data with information technology.
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