Mangroves in Myanmar: Conflicts and Impacts
The Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawady) river is the most important commercial waterway in Myanmar, traversing the country from north to south for just over 2000 km. The length of the coastline in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta is about 469 km. This area constitutes 46.4 % of
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Mangroves in Myanmar: Conflicts and Impacts Khin Maung Htay
The Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawady) river is the most important commercial waterway in Myanmar, traversing the country from north to south for just over 2000 km. The length of the coastline in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta is about 469 km. This area constitutes 46.4 % of the total mangrove area in Myanmar. In the past, mangrove forests in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta were cut for fuel wood and charcoal production to cater to the needs of Yangon, the capital city of Myanmar. With the energy crisis in the early 1970s, demand grew tremendously causing even greater depletion of the Ayeyarwaddy mangroves. With a growing population, the previously cut areas were cleared and transformed into paddy cultivation, fish and shrimp farms and salt production, including the mangrove forest reserve. Forest law could not prevail over the socio-economic needs of the people and as such, over a period of 75 years (1924–1999), 82.76 % of the mangroves in the Ayeyarwaddy Delta were depleted (Ohn 2003). The depletion of mangroves was so great and widespread that the Forest Department’s efforts to restore the mangroves have had only a limited impact and are by no means adequate to handle the situation in the whole of the Delta. The fate of the Ayeyarwaddy Delta mangroves, where mangrove forestlands have been reclaimed mainly for paddy (rice) over many decades, illustrates how mangroves are being degraded and destroyed, generally at a very much higher rate than that of tropical rainforests. The Delta was formerly covered with dense mangrove forests, most of which have been cleared during the last two decades to grow rice and to produce charcoal for domestic use. The FAO Mangrove Forest Management Guidelines (FAO 1994) stated that the environmental stability of the coastal forests, which afford protection to inland agricultural crops and villages, has become seriously impaired. Although the production of charcoal was banned in 1993, the average rate of deforestation in the Delta mangroves has continued at 2.4 % per annum, about three times higher than the national forest depletion rate of 0.74 %.
K.M. Htay (&) Environment and Forestry Specialist for Adaptation Fund Project, UNDP, Yangon, Myanmar e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2016 W. Tantikanangkul and A. Pritchard (eds.), Politics of Autonomy and Sustainability in Myanmar, Communication, Culture and Change in Asia 1, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-0363-9_5
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K.M. Htay
My research study site was one village in the Pyindaye mangrove forest reserve, part of the southern portion of the Ayeyarwaddy Delta, namely Oakpo-KwinChaung village. The methodology used for primary data collection included key informant interviews, informal interviews and participant observation. This study addresses the daily livelihoods of local villagers since the degradation of the mangrove forests. It examines the villagers’ social and economic status, customary rights, cultures, religious and traditional beliefs and their social networks
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