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Burma (Myanmar) Pictures
Below you will find photo collections of places from around the world. All images are the property of Rhenda Glasco. Contact me with questions regarding use, reproduction, or purchase of any of the pictures.
Recommended travel guides on Burma:
Burma -- from Wikipedia
The Union of Myanmar, formerly the Union of Burma, is the largest country in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by the People's Republic of China on the north, Laos on the east, Thailand on the south east, Bangladesh on the west, and India on the north west, with the Andaman Sea to the south, and the Bay of Bengal to the south west (for a total of over 2,000 kilometers of coast line).
In 1989, the country officially changed the English version of its name from Burma to Myanmar (along with changes in the English versions of many place names in the country, such as its capital city, from Rangoon to Yangôn). However, the official name of the country in the Burmese language, Myanma ( ), did not change. The English renaming proved to be politically controversial, seen by some as being less inclusive of minorities and unscholarly.
The country has been ruled by a military junta led by General Ne Win from 1962 to 1988, and its political system today remains under the tight control of the military.
Politics
Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. The current head of state is General Than Shwe who holds the title of "Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council." His appointed prime minister was Khin Nyunt until 19 October 2004, when he was replaced by Lt.-Gen. Soe Win. Almost all cabinet offices are held by military officers. US sanctions against the military government have been largely ineffective, due to loopholes in the sanctions and the willingness of mainly Asian business to continue investing in Myanmar and to initiate new investments, particularly in natural resource extraction. For example, the French petroleum company Total is able to buy Myanmar's oil despite the country being under sanctions, although Total (formerly TotalFinaElf) is the subject of a lawsuit in French and Belgian courts for alleged connections to human rights abuses along the gas pipeline jointly owned by Total, the American company Unocal, and the Myanmarian military.1 The United States clothing and shoe industry could also be affected if all the sanctions loopholes were to be closed, although they were already subject to boycotts prior to US sanctions imposed in June of 2002.2
The regime is accused of having a poor human rights record, and the human rights situation in the country is a subject of concern for a wide number of international organizations. There is no independent judiciary in Myanmar and political opposition to the military government is not tolerated.
Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party won 83% of parliamentary seats in a 1990 national election, but who was prevented from becoming prime minister by the military, has earned international praise as an activist for the return of democratic rule to Myanmar. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. She has been repeatedly placed under house arrest, although in recent years the regime has been willing to enter into negotiations with her and her party, the National League for Democracy. She was most recently placed under house arrest on May 31, 2003, following an attack on her convoy in northern Myanmar. She remains under house arrest
Human rights in Myanmar
Human rights in Myanmar are a long-standing concern for the international community and human rights organizations. There is general agreement that the military regime in Myanmar (Burma) is one of the world's most repressive regimes.
The Freedom in the World 2004 report by Freedom House notes that "The junta rules by decree, controls the judiciary, suppresses nearly all basic rights, and commits human rights abuses with impunity. Military officers hold most cabinet positions, and active or retired officers hold most top posts in all ministries. Official corruption is reportedly rampant both at the higher and local levels." [1]
Brad Adams, director of Human Rights Watch's Asia division, in a 2004 address described the human rights situation in the country as appalling: "Burma is the textbook example of a police state. Government informants and spies are omnipresent. Average Burmese people are afraid to speak to foreigners except in most superficial of manners for fear of being hauled in later for questioning or worse. There is no freedom of speech, assembly or association."
Forced labour
According to the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions several hundred thousand men, women, children and elderly people are forced to work against their will by the administration. Individuals refusing to work may be victims of torture, rape or death.
The International Labour Organization has continuously called on Myanmar to end the practice of forced labour since the 1960s. In June 2000, the ILO Conference adopted a resolution calling on governments to cease any relations with the country that might aid the junta to continue the use of forced labour. [3]
Freedom of speech and Political freedom
A 2004 Amnesty International report names more than 200 individuals imprisoned between 1989 and 2004, who are among more than 1,300 political prisoners who, according to the organization, have been imprisoned after unfair trials. The prisoners, including National League for Democracy (NLD) leaders Aung San Suu Kyi and U Tin Oo, have "been wrongfully denied their liberty for peaceful acts that would not be considered crimes under international law", Amnesty International claims. [4].
The Freedom House report notes that the authorities arbitrarily search citizens' homes, intercept mail, and monitor telephone conversations, and that the possession and use of telephones, fax machines, computers, modems, and software are criminalized.
Children's rights
According to Human Rights Watch, recruiting and kidnapping of children to the military is commonplace. An estimated 70,000 of the country’s 350,000-400,000 soldiers are children. There are also multiple reports of widespread child labour.
Conservation news for Burma
Illegal logging trade from Myanmar to China slows, but doesn't stop
(10/28/2009)
The illegal wood trade from Myanmar to China has slowed, but it still threatens Myanmar's tropical forests and species, according to a new report by Global Witness. From 2005 and 2008 improved border controls into China led to a drop in imports of logs and sawn wood by 70 percent.
Dangers for journalists who expose environmental issues
(09/19/2009)
Guinean journalist Lai Baldé has been threatened. Egyptian blogger Tamer Mabrouk has been sued. Russian journalist Grigory Pasko has just spent four years in prison. His Uzbek colleague, Solidzhon Abdurakhmanov, has just been given a 10-year jail sentence. Mikhail Beketov, another Russian journalist, has lost a leg and several fingers as a result of an assault. Bulgarian reporter Maria Nikolaeva was threatened with having acid thrown in her face. Filipino journalist Joey Estriber has been missing since 2006... What do these journalists and many others have in common? They are or were covering environmental issues in countries where it is dangerous to do so.
Critically-endangered turtle seen in the wild for the first time by scientists
(09/03/2009)
Scientists have stumbled on the Arakan forest turtle for the first time in the wild, according to a report by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). One of the world's rarest turtles, the Arakan forest turtle was thought to be extinct for 86 years, before being discovered in an Asian food market in 1994. It has never before been observed in the wild by scientists. A team with WCS found five of the Critically Endangered turtles in a wildlife sanctuary in Myanmar (also known as Burma). The rarely-visited sanctuary was originally created to protect Asian elephants.
Asia's conversion of forests for industrial rubber plantations hurts the environment
(05/21/2009)
Policies promoting industrial rubber plantations over traditional swidden, or slash-and-burn, agriculture across Southeast Asia may carry significant environmental consequences, including loss of biodiversity, reduction of carbon stocks, pollution and degradation of local water supplies, report researchers writing in Science. Conducting field work in the Xishuangbanna prefecture of China's Yunnan province and assessing broader regional trends, Alan Ziegler of the National University of Singapore and colleagues argue that policies favoring agricultural intensification over small-scale slash-and-burn have encouraged the rapid expansion of rubber plantations across more than 500,000 hectares (1,930 square miles) of montane forest in China, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Despite widespread perception among authorities that "swidden cultivation is a destructive system that leads only to forest loss and degradation", the researchers found that the transition to industrial plantations has not necessarily been a boon to the environment.
High ivory prices in Vietnam drive killing of elephants in Laos, Cambodia
(02/19/2009)
Indochina's remaining elephants are at risk from surging ivory prices in Vietnam, according to a new report from the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.
Photos of new species discovered in the Greater Mekong
(12/15/2008)
More than 1,000 previously unknown species have been discovered in the Greater Mekong, a region comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Vietnam and the Yunnan Province of China, in the past decade, according to a new report from WWF.
Elephants die significantly earlier in zoos than in wild
(12/11/2008)
A new study from Science provides disturbing evidence that one of the zoos’ most popular animals, the elephant, faces a far shorter lifespan in captivity than in the wild. The findings raise new ethical and scientific questions regarding the rightness of keeping elephants in captivity and the causes of their shorter life-spans.
How to Save Snow Leopards
(10/28/2008)
The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is one of the rarest and most elusive big cat species with a population of 4,500 to 7,500 spread across a range of 1.2 to 1.6 million kilometers in some of the world's harshest and most desolate landscapes. Found in arid environments and at elevations sometimes reaching 18,000 feet (5,500 meters), the species faces great threats despite its extreme habitat. These threats vary across its range, but in all countries where it is found — Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and possibly Myanmar — the species is at risk. In some countries snow leopard are directly hunted for their pelt, in others they are imperiled by depletion of prey, loss of habitat, and killing as a predator of livestock. These threats, combined with the cat's large habitat requirements, means conservation through the establishment of protected areas alone may not be enough save it from extinction in the wild in many of the countries in which it lives. Working to stave off this fate in half a dozen of its range countries is the Snow Leopard Conservancy. Founded by Dr. Rodney Jackson, a biologist who has been studying snow leopard in the wild for 30 years, the Conservancy seeks to conserve the species by "promoting innovative grassroots measures that lead local people to become better stewards of endangered snow leopards, their prey, and habitat."
Trafficking of tiger parts is rife in Myanmar
(10/15/2008)
Trafficking of parts from endangered wild cats is rife in Myanmar (Burma) according to a new report from TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network. Surveys conducted by TRAFFIC over the past 15 years have turned up 1,320 wild cat parts from at least 1,158 individual animals, including 107 tigers. The group says the toll in the country is far higher.
Camera traps capture photos of predators in Myanmar
(09/04/2008)
Myanmar's dense northern wild lands, researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have painstakingly gathered a bank of valuable data on the country's populations of tigers and other smaller, lesser known carnivores (see photo attachments). These findings will help in the formulation of conservation strategies for the country's wildlife.
China's log imports fall 19% in first half of 2008 due to high prices
(08/27/2008)
China's imports of raw logs plunged 18.7 percent by volume for the first half of 2008 due to rising prices and a cooling Chinese economy, reports the International Tropical Timber Organization.
Massive deforestation of mangroves may have worsened scale of disaster in Burma
(05/13/2008)
Weeks after the devastating cyclone Nagris struck Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta on May 2nd, scientists and the media are debating the role in the scale of the disaster played by the region's deforestation of mangroves. According to recent studies, mangrove forests act as a buffer against the effect's of tropical storms like Nagris, though scientists don't yet fully understand the relationship between storm mitigation and mangroves.
84 rare spoon-billed sandpipers found in Myanmar
(02/14/2008)
BirdLife International found 84 critically endangered spoon-billed sandpipers in coastal Myanmar (Burma). The discovery is welcome news for a species down to 200 to 300 pairs remaining in the wild.
First photos of a wild South China Tiger in 34 years
(10/14/2007)
Truckloads of illegal timber cross the Myanmar border to sawmills in China, while markets along the Thai border openly sell bear paws, tiger skins and elephant tusks.
Chinese demand takes toll on wildlife in Burma (Myanmar)
(09/04/2007)
If the market of Mong La is anything to go by, the remaining wild elephants, tigers and bears in Myanmar's forests are being hunted down slowly and sold to China.
Chinese demand drives global deforestation
(06/10/2007)
From outside, Cameroon's Ngambe-Tikar forest looks like a compact, tangled mass of healthy emerald green foliage. But tracks between the towering tropical hardwood trees open up into car park-sized clearings littered with logs as long as buses. Forestry officers say the reserve is under attack from unscrupulous commercial loggers who work outside authorized zones and do not respect size limits in their quest for maximum financial returns.
Fires burn across Burma; pollution levels rise in Thailand
(03/20/2007)
Fires are raging across Myanmar (Burma) causing 'haze' pollution in neighboring Thailand, Laos, and southern China according to new satellite images release by NASA. The fires are set annually during the dry season for clearing brush and scrub for agriculture. In especially dry years the fires often spread into adjacent forest areas.
Hiking through Myanmar, the country better known as Burma
(02/18/2007)
The recent history of Myanmar is rather grim. After gaining independence from the British in 1948, the country suffered a series of military takeovers, and has basically been under the dictatorship of a military junta for the past 50 years. At several points during this time, the people have taken to the streets to peacefully protest the military regime. The last major fight for democracy occurred in 1988, and climaxed with the first democratically held election since independence. The National League for Democracy (NLD), spearheaded by the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi, won by an overwhelming 84% of the vote. Sadly, regardless of their promises, the military junta had no intention of relinquishing their power, and imprisoned the major leaders of the NLD.
Stopping deforestation could net Burma $1 billion
(11/06/2006)
Its status as a pariah state aside, Burma could earn hundreds of millions of dollars for cutting its deforestation rate under a carbon-trading initiative proposed by a coalition of developing countries and under discussion this week at U.N. climate talks in Nairobi, Kenya.
China fuels illegal logging in Burma
(10/31/2005)
A new report, launched today by Global Witness at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Bangkok , "A Choice for China -- Ending the destruction of Burma's northern frontier forests" , details shocking new evidence of the massive illicit plunder of Burma's forests by Chinese logging companies. Much of the logging takes place in forests that form part of an area said to be "very possibly the most bio-diverse, rich, temperate area on earth."
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