Organized Chaos: The illicit overland timber trade between Myanmar and China

In January 2015, the Myanmar army raided an illegal logging operation in a remote mountainous region in the country’s Kachin State. The conviction and subsequent pardon of 155 Chinese nationals in July for illegal logging in Myanmar threw a spotlight on how massive volumes of timber stolen from the county’s precious frontier forests have been flowing unhindered into China for decades.

EIA's UK office has just released a new report following extensive undercover investigations into the trade in China and Myanmar, exposing the key actors and systemic corruption which drive and facilitate it. The report documents how in Kachin State all parties profit from shady Chinese businesses paying in gold bars for the rights to log entire mountains to the official corruption which allows the timber to pass through various checkpoints.

To download the full report, click here.