Quantifying forest loss and forest degradation in Myanmar’s “home of teak”

The Bago Mountain Range in Myanmar is known as the “home of teak” (Tectona grandis L. f.) because of its bountiful, naturally growing teak-bearing forests. Accelerating forest loss and degradation are threatening the sustainable production of teak in the region. Changes in land cover between 2000 and 2017 in four reserved forests of the Bago Mountain Range were mapped using supervised classification of Landsat imagery and training data collected in the field. A stratified random sample was used to collect reference data to assess accuracy of the maps and estimate area. Based on the reference sample, it was estimated that the forest area declined from 71 240 ha (standard error (SE) = 1524 ha) in 2000 to 40 891 ha (SE = 4404 ha) in 2017, whereas the area of degraded forests increased from 88 797 ha (SE = 1694 ha) to 97 013 ha (SE = 5395 ha). The annualized rates of gross forest loss and gross forest degradation were 1.03% and 0.97%, respectively, indicating that forest degradation paralleled forest loss. In many degraded areas, there is an opportunity to ameliorate the situation through silviculture. The 2017 map identifies bamboo-dominated degraded forests where enrichment planting or reforestation is recommended.