There is an inconvenient truth about the fallout from the Myanmar military coup, argues PhD student Jack Jenkins Hill, who is aware that the environmental impact is serious.

In a Podcast interview with Insight Myanmar, Hill highlights the free-for-all over natural resource extraction in Myanmar that is having serious consequences.

“Capitalism and resource exploitation and appropriation have continued to perpetuate struggles,” Hill says. “The environmental impact of the coup has been something that's been widely underreported, actually. And so I think having more attention on this space is really critical, because the outlook is incredibly bleak. In many ways, it plays a very important role in the conflict. So it is something that I think we should all think about a little bit more.”

Currently a PhD student at the University College London, Hill has spent the last decade studying such issues as deforestation, mining, and natural resource governance, as well as how indigenous communities have been impacted in Myanmar.

He begins by going back to the colonial era in discussing the history of the exploitation of natural resources. Mass logging took place—the British Navy was basically built from Burmese teak. It seems just about everyone was trying to get in on the profits back then; even future US President Herbert Hoover owned a silver mine. Successive military regimes picked up where the British left off, and further expanded into such areas as jade, and more recently, rare earth metals. In 2021 alone, it was estimated that the exploitation of these natural resources netted over 33 billion dollars!

Focusing first on the timber industry, Hill describes how in the last decade, deforestation has largely come in the guise of agribusiness, such as palm oil and rubber plantations. There are also smaller, illegal logging operations whose lumber is smuggled across the border. These have become increasingly militarized, given the inherent profits.

Please find the Insight Myanmar Podcast episode here - Episode #163: The Inconvenient Truth about the Military Coup

https://insightmyanmar.org/complete-shows/2023/4/30/episode-163-the-inco...