Myanmar is drawing a 30-year plan involving the participation of private companies in a bid to prevent forest from depletion and preserve natural environment.
Under the plan, a private company of Kaungmyat is projected to grow 200,000 teak plantations in the country, the local Flower News said Sunday, adding that as part of the plan, the company will also grow 405 hectares of wood plantations including teak and hardwood in the first five years. According to other local report, the private Htoo Foundation has started an initial three-year project (2008-2010) of planting 8,100 hectares of teak in Myitkyina and Bhamo, northernmost Kachin state of the country. More companies such as ATSO Green, Yeedagon, NRTC and Honda plan to grow 48,600 hectares and 7,493 hectares in Bago division and Kachin state respectively. Since 2005, the Myanmar government has granted private companies for cultivation of teak and allotted land for them for the purpose and such allotted land has now reached up to 80,000 hectares in two divisions or states in the country. Meanwhile, foreign agencies are also helping Myanmar green the country's dry zone in the central part. Of them, the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) has introduced a project worth of 1.5 million U.S. dollars to improve rehabilitation capacity of the deforested Nyaung U region. Besides, a Japanese company, the Kokusai Kogyo Co., has also offered to provide consultant services for an a forestation project in the same dry zone under a grant aid assistance worth 61million yens (nearly 500,000 U.S. dollars), according to earlier official report. There are 155,340 square-kilometers of reserve forests and protected public forests in Myanmar with 52,650 hectares of forest plantations, statistics show. Myanmar is rich in forest resources with forests covering about50 percent of its total land area .