Ashen earth strewn with the limbs of once-mighty trees is all that is left of the fearsome forest in central Myanmar that Wa Tote remembers from her youth.
“We would only dare enter in a big group. The forest was deep and had many wild animals. Now we cannot even find a tree’s shadow to shelter under when we are tired,” the 72-year-old said.
At one point tigers were so common in the area that their bones were traded cheaply. Now they have vanished into memory.
Large swathes of the undulating landscape of the Bago mountains have been stripped bare by logging firms over recent years and the last remnants of wood are being burnt.
Locals say there are plans to replant the area with valuable teak trees — though even if they do, these will take up to 80 years to reach maturity.
Logging in Myanmar exploded under the former junta, as the generals tossed aside sustainable forestry practices in their thirst to cash in on vast natural resources.
Experts say an insatiable world appetite for precious hardwoods is threatening rare species and helping to drive deforestation in one of the last major areas of tropical forest in Asia.
The country lost almost 20 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
Widespread degradation of the most densely wooded areas means that so-called “closed forest” more than halved in size, from 30.9 million to 13.4 million hectares.
Experts say corruption and poor protection have enabled rampant illegal logging that lines the pockets of crony businessmen, soldiers and rebels groups alike.
A quasi-civilian government that replaced outright military rule in 2011 has sought to stem the flood of timber from the country with a ban on the export of raw logs which took effect on April 1.
“Our ban will be very effective. There will be cutting, distribution and finishing of timber products locally, so that we can also increase employment opportunities,” said the director general of the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry, Tin Tun. Wildlife group WWF said the biggest driver of forest loss has been large-scale conversion for agriculture, often after woodland is degraded by logging or the collection of wood for fuel.
It welcomed the export ban and said the government has also slashed quotas for teak and other hardwoods by 60 percent and 50 percent respectively for the coming fiscal year compared to 2012/13.
“But given the high volume of illegal logging and exports in Myanmar, it will take a long time before we see how effective the ban will be,” said WWF’s Myanmar conservation program manager Michelle Owen.
In mountainous northern Myanmar close to the Chinese border, logging roads score the landscape as firms drive ever deeper into pristine forests.
“Stopping logging has to happen now,” said Frank Momberg of conservation group Flora and Fauna International, which is struggling to protect the newly discovered and critically endangered Myanmar snub nosed monkey. There are thought to be barely 300 of the flat-faced primates left in the dense forests of Kachin state at the eastern tip of the Himalayas.
Large scale mechanical felling is stripping even steep hillsides, with the loss of tree cover causing landslides and further environmental destruction, conservationists warn.
Chinese workers have flooded into the area, fueling demand for the monkeys to be hunted for food and traditional medicine, Momberg said.
Other species also inhabit the threatened forests, including the red panda, Blyth’s Tragopan pheasant and the Takin, known as a goat antelope.
“A complete ecosystem is being destroyed by this radical logging,” Momberg said.
He said the loggers are supplying rare woods for a furniture industry in Tengchong, in China’s Yunnan province, using maple trees to make delicate carved tables and protected Taiwania conifers for “luxurious coffins.”
Flora and Fauna is setting up the approximately 250,000 hectare Imawbum national park with Myanmar’s forestry department and have created hunting-free zones with the support of local villages.
China recorded importing 10 million cubic meters of round logs from its impoverished neighbor between 2000 and 2013 — almost twice Myanmar’s officially registered global export trade of 6.4 million cubic meters for the period, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) campaign group.
Some 84 percent of logs imported into China went by land, despite longstanding rules barring exports from any other route than through Myanmar’s Yangon and Dawei ports, making them “legally questionable at best and downright illegal at worst,” the EIA said. In a recent report based on Myanmar forestry documents and global trade data, the EIA said the country was believed to have exported up to 3.5 times more logs than the volumes officially recorded between 2000 and 2014.
“Such a gap is indicative of widespread criminality and corruption in Myanmar’s timber sector,” the report said, estimating this vast shadow industry was worth up to $5.7 billion.
And despite the export ban, trucks loaded with logs were seen around the Yangon port after April 1, while more than 60 tons of illegal timber were recently found in trucks disguised as anti-logging festival floats.
Tony Neil, forest governance adviser at Myanmar environmental group EcoDev, said the current dry season has seen an “unprecedented” amount of timber crossing the China-Myanmar border, with several hundred trucks a day making the journey.
Demand is driven from all over the world, with timber “laundered” through ports in Malaysia and Singapore and the price of prized logs such as rosewood shooting up.
“It’s like an extinction frontier,” he said.
Myanmar’s forests seek life
Myanmar’s forests seek life
Japan’s traditional kimonos are being repurposed in creative and sustainable ways
- A genuine silk kimono, which literally means ‘worn thing,’ lasts a hundred years or more
- In a Japanese family, it’s handed down over generations like heirloom jewelry, artworks and military medals
TOKYO: The kimono, that elaborate, delicate wrap-around garment worn by geisha and samurai from centuries back, is getting a vibrant remake, appreciated these days for a virtue that’s more relevant than ever: sustainability.
A genuine silk kimono, which literally means “worn thing,” lasts a hundred years or more. In a Japanese family, it’s handed down over generations like heirloom jewelry, artworks and military medals.
It never goes out of style.
The design of the kimono and accompanying “obi” sash has remained basically the same since the 17th century Edo period depicted in Akira Kurosawa samurai movies.
But today, some people are taking a different creative approach, refashioning the traditional kimono, and also taking apart and resewing them as jackets, dresses and pants.
“I noticed that a lot of beautiful kimono is just sleeping in people’s closets. That’s such a waste,” said Mari Kubo, who heads a kimono-remake business called K’Forward, pronounced “K dash forward.”
Hers is among a recent surge in such services, which also turn old kimono into tote bags and dolls.
The most popular among Kubo’s products are “tomesode,” a type of formal kimono that is black with colorful, embroidered flowers, birds or foliage at the bottom.
She also creates matching sets, or what she calls “set-ups.” A tomesode is turned into a jacket with its long, flowing sleeves intact, and its intricate patterns placed at the center in the back. She then takes a kimono with a matching pattern to create a skirt or pants to go with the top. Sometimes, an obi is used at the collar to add a pop of color.
Kubo said many of her customers are young people who want to enjoy a kimono without the fuss.
A remade kimono at K’Forward can cost as much as 160,000 yen ($1,000) for a “furisode,” a colorful kimono with long sleeves meant for young unmarried women, while a black tomesode goes for about 25,000 yen ($160).
Reuse and recycle
What Tomoko Ohkata loves most about the products she designs using old kimonos is that she doesn’t have to live with a guilty conscience, and instead feels she is helping solve an ecological problem.
“I feel the answer was right there, being handed down from our ancestors,” she said.
Recycling venues in Japan get thousands of old kimonos a day as people find them stashed away in closets by parents and grandparents. These days, Japanese generally wear kimonos just for special occasions like weddings. Many women prefer to wear a Western-style white wedding dress rather than the kimono, or they wear both.
Many of Ohkata’s clientele are people who have found a kimono at home and want to give it new life. They care about the story behind the kimono, she added.
Her small store in downtown Tokyo displays various dolls, including a figure of an emperor paired with his wife, who are traditionally brought out for display in Japanese homes for the Girls’ Day festival every March 3. Her dolls, however, are exquisitely dressed in recycled kimonos, tailored in tiny sizes to fit the dolls. They sell for 245,000 yen ($1,600) a pair.
The art of putting on a kimono
The original old-style kimono is also getting rediscovered.
“Unlike the dress, you can arrange it,” says Nao Shimizu, who heads a school in Japan’s ancient capital of Kyoto that teaches people how to wear a kimono and how to carry oneself while wearing it.
“In half a year, you can learn how to do it all by yourself,” she said, briskly demonstrating several ways to tie the obi to express different moods, from playful to understated.
Besides its durability, said Shimizu, that versatility also makes the kimono sustainable.
Younger Japanese are taking a more relaxed view, wearing a kimono with boots, for instance, she laughed. Traditionally, kimono is worn with sandals called “zori.”
Although it requires some skill to put on a kimono in the traditional way, one can take lessons from teachers like Shimizu, like learning a musical instrument. Professional help is also available at beauty parlors, hotels and some shops.
Most Japanese might wear a kimono just a few times in their lives. But wearing one is a memorable experience.
Sumie Kaneko, a singer who plays the traditional Japanese instruments koto and shamisen, often performs wearing flashy dresses made of recycled kimonos. The idea of sustainability is deeply rooted in Japanese culture, she says, noting that the ivory and animal hide used in her musical instruments are now hard to obtain.
She calls it “the recycling of life.”
“The performer breathes new life into them,” says the New York-based Kaneko.
“In the same way, a past moment — and those patterns and colors that were once loved — can come back to life.”
