Mekong Partnership for the Environment USAID-funded Mekong Partnership for the Environment is helping communities in Myanmar understand the EIA processes related to development projects that may impact their environments and communities. On 26 June 2016, MPE partner Forests Resource Environment Development and Conservation Association (FREDA) conducted the first of two workshops on “Community Awareness Raising for […]
Category: Myanmar
Township tells farmers not to protest over land
A group of farmers in Rakhine State’s Kyaukphyu township are hoping for negotiations with the Southeast Asia Gas Pipeline (SEAGP) company, after being told by local authorities not to sue the firm over damage to farmland.
Data, Development and the Environment: Regional Journalists and NGOs Take on Data Journalism
Mekong Partnership for the Environment With help from Mekong Partnership from the Environment (MPE), the Mekong region now has a new team of skilled regional journalists and NGOs who can bring evidence-based environment stories to their audiences. USAID-funded MPE and Myanmar’s Phandeeyar are training journalists and local NGOs to tell compelling stories with environmental data. At the […]
Aung San Suu Kyi visit is chance to rethink investments
This week’s visit by State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to Thailand appears to hold out hope for Thai state and private investors to revitalise their plans for key investments in Myanmar. Among these projects, the most prominent are the Dawei special economic zone and a cascade of hydroelectric dams on the Thanlwin River.
The road to Dawei is paved with empty promises
Burma’s State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi will meet with Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha to discuss bilateral issues focused on trade and economic cooperation during her visit to Thailand on 23-25 June. Meanwhile, the Thai government has announced yet again plans to put the long-delayed Dawei Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project higher on its agenda.
In 2012, Suu Kyi visited Thailand on her first trip outside of Burma in 24 years. She met with Burmese migrant workers in Mahachai, Samut Sakhon province, which has the largest migrant community in Thailand. At that time, she promised to do her best to improve the country’s economy so that migrant workers would have jobs to return home to in Burma.
NGOs to oppose megaprojects during Suu Kyi visit
Non-governmental organisations on Tuesday called on Aung San Suu Kyi to put on hold two projects with Thailand during her visit to the country.
As the government is preparing for her first visit to Thailand as foreign minister and state counsellor, 23 non-governmental groups are also making their move against attempts by the host Thailand to ink deals with Mrs Suu Kyi during her three-day trip.
“As one of the leaders in the Myanmar government, we urge you to suspend decisions on any projects, pending the completion of strategic and transboundary impact assessments; and allow people to make informed decisions, ensuring transparent and accountable investments, which mutually benefit both Thailand and Myanmar,” they said in a statement.
Government Told to Demand Transparency From SEZ Firms
The companies involved in planning and building special economic zones (SEZs) in Dawei and Kyaukphyu are failing to disclose impact assessments and other information relating to the massive projects, according to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ).
Progress on the Dawei SEZ, in southern Burma’s Tenasserim Division, has been delayed by a lack of funding, but the governments of Burma, Thailand and, more recently, Japan, are all involved in a project that looks to be moving ahead.
Advocacy Groups to Monitor Government’s Dealings with Toyo-Thai
Mon State advocacy groups will continue to monitor the activity of the state government and Toyo Thai Corporation Public Company Limited (TTCL) after representatives met recently to discuss the gas energy investment options, according to groups in opposition to the coal-fired plant.
The groups will keep an eye on the government and TTCL due to concerns that the meeting would lead to a resumption in construction work at TTCL’s proposed coal-fired power plant project in Anndin Village.
On 10 June the representatives of TTCL, led by its chairperson, met with the state chief minister and government officials at the chief minister’s guest hall. At the meeting, they discussed the potential for a liquid propane gas bottling plant, which would provide gas for cooking instead of firewood.
Saving the Salween: Southeast Asia’s last major undammed river
In a world of galloping hydro-power rapidly engulfing the developing world and new dams popping up in the Amazon, the Congo and along the Mekong, it is hard to find any important river left in the world, that has escaped unscathed and undammed.
The free-flowing Salween is the last important undammed river in East Asia, where endangered species including tigers and clouded leopards can still be found in remote parts of Myanmar’s ethnic Karen State.
From the snow-capped mountains of Tibet, the Salween rushes through steep gorges in Yunnan Province and flows through four of Myanmar’s ethnic states before emptying into the Andaman Sea.
Thanlwin dams criticised ahead of state counsellor’s Thailand visit
Another civil society group has joined the mounting campaign against dams planned along the Thanlwin River, also known as the Salween, ahead of an upcoming energy meeting between Thailand and Myanmar.