5,000 tons of teak, hardwood to be transported from East Than-Lwin with NRPC’s permission

5,000 tons of teak, hardwood to be transported from East Than-Lwin with NRPC’s permission
by -
Naw Dway Eh Khu

The Forest Department will officially transport 3,000 tons of teak and 2,000 tons of hardwood, which have been piled up in East Than Lwin, with permission from the National Reconciliation and Peace Center (NRPC), the district deputy director U Soe Moe said.

The timber has been extracted from the timber production plots owned by the Karenni National People’s Liberation Front (KNPLF) and the Forest Department has instructed the armed group to submit the timber to the State and the department will pay for the production costs.

“There is a plan to transport them in line with procedure. The State will extract the timber at its expense from East Than Lwin Company, as agreed in the meeting. Myanmar Teak Enterprise will manage on behalf of the State in the future after the timber has been extracted. When it carries out the management, we will follow the instruction from our superiors on auctioning off [the timber],” said U Soe Moe.

The Forest Department will officially extract 5,000 tons of teak and hardwood in the east of the Than Lwin (Salween) River - 1,000 tons in Mei Se Nan under Mese Township, 1,200 tons in Hway Nan Ma San under Shadaw Township, 2,000 tons in Ywar Thit Sut Pai, and 800 tons in Thar Yar, according to him.

The Forest Department will stamp the timber logs and float them down the Than Lwin River on rafts and retrieve them at Pon Chaung Wa timber yard in Hpasawng.

The transported teak and hardwood will be gathered at Kone Thar timber yard in Loikaw and the authorities will transfer them to Myanmar Timber Enterprise after measuring the logs and stamping seals on them.

This is the first and last time the NRPC is allowing timber extraction within the state and the KNPLF has to follow the government’s instruction in extracting the timber since it is a ceasefire organization, according to the Forest Department.

“We have instructed office letters. We are allowing the last timber extraction this year. We have instructions against permitting such kind of timber extraction system in the future,” said U Soe Moe.

The Forest Department will mark the trees in the reserved forests and unreserved forests inside the forest area and the specified height for the trees is six feet and six inches. These trees cannot be cut down after they have been marked, according to U Myint Swe, deputy general manager of Myanmar Timber Enterprise.

“The timber has numbers at the top. They have government seals and forest seals. They also have symbols of the area’s number. Illegal timber doesn’t have any seals. Nobody will stamp them. You can’t stamp them on your own. We can inspect illegal timber just by looking at the timber,” he said.

Lumber and logs from official teak production are exported to foreign countries after they have been auctioned off by Myanmar Timber Enterprise.

Timber that is not used by Myanmar Timber Enterprise are auctioned off by the Forest Department and turned into finished products from the raw materials but they can only be used in the area they have been extracted in.

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