Green Options » Myanmar

$5 Billion for Burma Military Regime comes from Chevron, Total

Derek Markham — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 22:56:39 +0000

A gas project of Chevron and Total is responsible for major funding of the military junta in Myanmar, allowing Burmese generals to accumulate billions of dollars in Singapore banks, and human rights abuses have been linked to the Yadana Pipeline, says human rights group EarthRights.

EarthRights claims that both Total and Chevron have tried to dismiss the abuses, which include forced labor and killings, by Myanmar troops along the Yadana Pipeline. The group also maintains that the $4.8 billion in revenue from the project has allowed the ruling military junta to continue to exist.

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Illegal Trade in Endangered Asian Elephants Thriving Under Thai Loopholes

Rhishja Larson — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 19:10:03 +0000

Current laws in Thailand make it easy for live elephants - including infant elephants stolen from their mothers in the wild - to be traded unscrupulously for “entertainment” purposes.

For many people, thoughts of Thailand conjure up romantic notions of being transported to various tourist attractions on the back of an elephant. But tragically, many of the captive elephants used for the Thai tourist trade, and as zoo and circus exports, are the victims of an insidious, illegal market that threatens the survival of endangered Asian elephants, and is responsible for widespread exploitation and abuse of these intelligent and sensitive mammals.

Thankfully, a recent report published by TRAFFIC Southeast Asia exposes the loopholes and reporting inaccuracies that have been providing a smokescreen for Thailand’s illegal trade in endangered, wild-caught Asian elephants (Elephas maximus).

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Rubber Tree Growing in S. E. Asia Expanding, Along with Risks

Michael Ricciardi — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 22:37:54 +0000

Unrestricted expansion of rubber tree plantations in South East Asia could lead to “devastating environmental effects”, according to authors Ziegler, Fox and Xu writing in a May, 2009 perspective article in Science.

Throughout the “montane” (foot hill and low mountainous) mainland of South East Asia (inclusive of Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and China), rubber plantations are expanding. So far, an estimated half million hectares have been planted, and by 2050, that land mass area could triple. This expansion will come at a cost to broad leaf, evergreen forests and “swidden” areas (with vegetation from older slash and burn efforts).

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The High Price of Rubber & the Devastation of Southeast Asia

Lisa Wojnovich — Tue, 26 May 2009 12:00:02 +0000

Slash-and-burn agriculture may be bad for the environment, but in southeast Asia, the cure may be worse than the disease. Endorsed by multiple governments, at both the local and national levels, as well as numerous business interests, everyone from individual farmers to massive corporations has been replacing the traditional slash-and-burn, more technically known as swidden, method of farming with rubber plantations managed with European techniques. In the last 20 years, over 1.2 million acres of land in China, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar have been cleared and replanted with nothing but rubber trees. By 2050, this number is expected to double — possibly even triple.

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Solar Power Clinics in War-Torn Burma Win World’s Most Prestigious Environmental Award

Levi Novey — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:55:18 +0000

A project that trained medical personnel to install solar power at hospitals and mobile clinics along the war-torn border of Burma has won the top prize at this year’s Energy Globe environmental awards.

The medical centers provide crucial aid to approximately 200,000 refugees who have fled Burma because of the catastrophic, genocidal efforts of its military-dominated government.

Located in numerous locations along the border of Burma and Thailand, the remote clinics help people with serious injuries and also with basic care. They are often the only source of medical care refugees have. About 1 million displaced people are estimated to be hiding in the heavily land-mined border zone, doing their best to hang on despite the ever-present possibility of violence.

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The effort to train medical staff so that they could travel to these remote facilities and install solar power systems received top honors at this year’s Energy Globe Awards, competing among 800 environmental projects from 111 countries.

The significance of the effort cannot be understated, as the care centers available to these desperate people were without electricity prior to the training project. The risk of the Burmese military attacking clinics has demanded the use of less permanent, flexible medical facilities. Now that solar power has been installed in many of the mobile clinics, medical personnel can operate more easily on patients who have urgent needs during night hours. Laptops can also be used to assess important medical databases. Communication devices and microscopes can be powered, as well as refrigerators for life-saving vaccines. An eye doctor was even able to start providing cataract surgeries last year: something that was not possible before without electricity.

According to a news release from the Energy Globe website, the Burma solar clinic project won this year’s overall grand prize in a landslide and received a standing ovation. The awards ceremony took place in the Czech Republic earlier this week, and was attended by many of Europe’s key environmental leaders. To read more about the Energy Globe competition click here.

How You Can Help Contribute to the Burma Project and Others

While the remarkable achievement to bring solar power to Burmese mobile clinics is credited to a partnership of groups, our friends at the non-profit Green Empowerment played a crucial role in the project. I’ve written before about one of their successful partnership projects that brought wind power to a small community in Peru that previously had no electricity. With an emphasis on alternative energy and small green initiatives that build community capacity and improve quality of life, Green Empowerment has become a major player in conservation efforts throughout the world.

Proof of this status is clear not only because Green Empowerment is involved with the Burma solar clinics, but also because one of their projects in Nicaragua was also a finalist for the top honors in the Energy Globe’s water category. Green Empowerment has a wealth of detailed information on their website about the Burma solar clinic project, as well as their other efforts worldwide. Their projects are financed via grants and also by people like us.

If you’d like to donate money or resources to the effort to bring solar power to medical clinics in the Burma area, or to other projects, please visit Green Empowerment’s website at www.greenempowerment.org.

Photo Courtesy of Green Empowerment

China’s Oil Stockpiling Suggests Fossil Fuel Dependency Unlikely to Decline

Elizabeth Balkan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:00:08 +0000

In a rare admission of China’s strategic petroleum reserve capacity, a senior industry executive acknowledged that all four state-owned emergency oil reserve tanks – holding a total 100 million barrels – are filled to the brim.

Revealing that China’s current stockpiles have already exceeded the capacity of the first phase of facilities, which the government built over the last two years, China Shipping Group President Li Shaode urged the government to use foreign exchange reserves to finance floating storage capacity in the short term.

Li’s comments come after a string of recent oil- and gas-related events in China. Within the last few months, China has entered into natural gas supply agreements with Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and has already begun construction on needed pipelines. Just yesterday, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) signed a 25 year gas supply agreement with Qatar.

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Google Banned by Myanmar Govt., Still Donates $1 Million to Cyclone Relief

Gavin Hudson — Mon, 12 May 2008 17:14:18 +0000

Despite being banned by the government of Burma (also Myanmar), Google has said that it will donate up to $1 million USD to assist victims of Cyclone Nargis.

Google has offered to match donations made to UNICEF and Direct Relief International for all donations made at Google’s Support disaster relief in Myanmar page, up to one million dollars.

Internet users in Burma reported that access to Google and Gmail had been blocked by the strict military junta governing the country in the summer of 2006. By this time, Yahoo and Hotmail had already made the censored IT blacklist.

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How You Can Help Burma Cyclone Victims

Gavin Hudson — Sat, 10 May 2008 12:59:14 +0000

New estimates place the death toll in Burma–also called Myanmar by the leaders of its strict military regime–at 100,000. In the initial wake of the cyclone, the brutal Burmese government made attempts to interfere with international aid agencies. In recent days, as reported on CNN, the Burmese government has changed its policies, saying “We are ready to speed up and strengthen our relief effort. We will accept aid from any corner.”

Here, you will find six organizations accepting charitable donations for relief work in Burma as well as five organizations possibly accepting volunteers for relief efforts.

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