Myanmar

Amilitaryjunta has ruled Myanmar, commonly known as Burma or the Union of Burma, ever since General Ne Win gained power in 1962. His successors have ruled the country with an iron fist ever since. A tropical country in the path of seasonal monsoons, Burma is about the size of the state of Texas. Its population of 50 million people lives under one of the most oppressive governments in the world.

Although Myanmar's official environmental policy is good (it signed the Kyoto protocol and various other international agreements), high levels of corruption and mismanagement have exposed large swaths of Myanmar's jungles to rampant deforestation. The highly secretive and controlling nature of the Myanmar government makes it difficult to find reliable environmental statistics.

The French oil company Total has developed oil fields in the country and allegedly provides hundreds of millions of dollars in funds to the military government. Oil money has been linked to Myanmar's purchases of arms from China and Russia, though Total denies these allegations and claims that the money is used for economic development.

Although Total and other international companies working in Myanmar would have their own internal environmental regulations, the military junta would have little reason to enforce strict environmental controls. Nobel Prize winner and leader of the democratic opposition Aung San Suu Kyi is being held under house arrest and has been kept incommunicado. With a military government that stifles all dissent it seems unlikely that basic human rights concerns—let alone the social and environmental concerns of the population—will be addressed under the current status quo.

Official corruption and mismanagement have exposed Myanmar's jungles to rampant deforestation