Monday, November 29, 2010

A Hundred Square Miles of Myanmar

By Richard Mark Glover

The late Thomas Berry, a geologian who was part of the deep ecology movement that birthed out of the 1960’s, suggested the way out of our imminent ecological ruin will require a change at the highest magnitude – a change at the species level. Whether its a chemical DNA mutation or a cultural bang so powerful it would become part of our evolution, the great change has many obstacles and one such hurdle now awaits destiny in the vast unspoiled coast of Myanmar.

Ruled by a military junta, Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has recently staged the first national elections in nearly twenty years. The election results changed little in this repressed country of Southeast Asia, home of the world’s 46th highest Gross National Product, but some have suggested that the Chinese and Viet Nam models of Communistic Capitalism and their “special economic zones” have ticked the interest of Burma’s generals, providing an honorable path out of a state controlled economy.

A multi-billion dollar project has been awarded to Bangkok based Italian Thai Development to develop a hundred square mile slice of the country’s coastal planes with an industrial park that should nucleate nightmares for environmentalists worldwide.

According to the NY Times the site will be “a haven for heavy polluters” and will include a steel mill, a plastics factory, a petrochemical complex, an oil refinery, a fertilizer factory, and a coal-burning power plant.

Myanmar, the country that spawned the early thoughts of British economist E.F. Schumacher, who’s collection of essays “Small is Beautiful”, smacks with the philosophy that maximum well-being is derived from minimum consumption and included a tightly worded piece called “Buddhist Economics”, finds itself neighbored by economic tigers, and is now in the throw of reversing its heritage and jumping off into the murky waters of so-called western progress.

The question of who will benefit from all this industry near the port town of Dawei where cashew and rice fields punctuate the soft rolling hills, will likely not include the 100,000 soon to be displaced Burmese fishers and farmers, nor the pristine ecosystems that have never experienced the onslaught of industrialization. Thai consumers will benefit as will others sufficiently endowed in this densely populated region of Asia, along with the generals, investors and the top dogs of the complex, provided everything goes as planned.

And what happens when the plan fails, a valve left open pumping poly-vinyl chloride into already crippled Bay of Bengal, or an explosion at a petrochemical cracker allowing 2-2-3 tetra-methyl-butane to cloud into the often rancid air of the Indian sub-continent and for that matter what if the original design itself, honed for quick profit, does not incorporate all the latest technology available in the west for keeping pollution minimal?

According to the NY Times there is nothing like the EPA in Myanmar and it is probable the Myanmar regime would leave the design and operation to the Italian-Thai Development group.

“It is totally different from Thailand,” said Anan Amarapala, V-P of the marine division. Thais would argue about compensation and go to court. That’s not the case with this project.”

In a speech to the Ecuadorian Senate almost thirty years ago, Margaret Thatcher stated, in reference to the country’s expanding industrial development, “You have the opportunity to do it right the first time because we (the west) have already made the mistakes.”

Certainly we all know how un-checked capitalism works – profit is the goal, quick profit is even better, and there will be plenty of it because eager investors will make their money available for this project especially if the bottom line has no conscience (added cost) to filter.

And therein lies the problem – profit coupled with a disregard for the natural world. The environment is very much for sale in Myanmar and the greed to profit will again show why Berry’s maxim of changing at the species level will be much harder than bulldozing a hundred square miles of Myanmar.