February 1 marks three years since Myanmar General Min Aung Hlaing led an unpopular military coup that resulted in a nationwide war. This conflict has not only taken a toll on people, but also on the country’s rich natural resources and the communities that depended on them.
To illustrate this, Mekong Eye will feature three documentaries throughout this month to show the connection between the coup-induced conflict and natural resources.
These films, backed by the Our Mekong, Our Say project led by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network, were created by Myanmar journalists collaborating with citizen journalists to bring out stories and footage from the war zones.
We start with No Longer Home, a film by Maran, a journalist based in Kachin State and the co-founder of local news platform Kachin Waves.
The film revolves around Nam San Yang, a small village in the southern part of Kachin State. The residents there, now Internally Displaced People (IDP), were forced to leave their homes due to armed conflict that started in 2011. When the war calmed down, they returned to Nam San Yang and tried to reconstruct their houses and resume rice farming.
However, recent assaults — including a military airstrike on the village in July 2023 that targeted Kachin Independence Army (KIA) fighters — prevented their return. In their absence, Nam San Yang had become a site for illegal gold mining, a consequence of weakened law enforcement after the 2021 coup.
Released in April 2023, the Kachin State Accountable Resource Governance report highlighted a significant rise in illegal mining throughout Kachin State, which is well-known for its abundant valuable minerals like rare earth, gold and jade.
Gold mining surged tenfold after the coup, providing revenue for ethnic armed groups battling the Myanmar military.
Maran’s film captures the moon-like landscape caused by gold mining, eradicating forests and harming soil and water sources that once sustained farmland. The ongoing war, and the political vacuum it created, will likely encourage an increase in illegal mining and continue to block the villagers from returning to their homes.
Witness their struggles through the video link below, and stay tuned for upcoming documentaries.
Our Mekong, Our Say is a one-year project run by the Internews’ Earth Journalism Network. It supported more than 25 professional and citizen journalists in the lower Mekong region to produce films and stories that reflect the environmental challenges and people’s resilience in protecting natural resources.
