Villagers in Three Pagodas Township forced to plant Jatropha trees

October 2, 2008

HURFOM :Three Pagodas Township authorities are forcing villagers to plant Jatropha “physic nut” trees along the seven kilometer road connecting Chaung Zone to Three Pagodas Pass. Residents have to pay authorities for the cost of the trees, and then plant the trees themselves.

The order was given on September 28th, by U Myo Kyi, 46, chairman of the Three Pagodas Township Peace and Development Council (PDC), and applies to Kyo-Ha-Blu, Jown-Kwee and Chaung Zone villages.

The recent order follows a similar one last year, when residents were also required to plant jatropha. “Last cold season, PDC officials ordered each households to grow ten to fifteen plants and took 50 baht from each household to cover the cost of the saplings,” says Nai Bai, 35, a resident of Chaung Zone village.

“The chairman demanded we replant in places where trees from the project last year have died. He forced our village headmen to collect 100 baht from each household to cover the cost of the trees,” said Nai Thein, 40, from Kyo-Ha-Blu village.

According to residents of Jown-Kwee village, Three Pagodas PDC officers also instructed residents to replant Jatropha, and forced them to purchase expensive saplings from government officials. “The Chairman said we must implement the government’s project and forced us to pay 5 baht per tree to the forest department. The saplings are overpriced, and each person in my village has to buy twenty saplings.”

In Chaung Zone, Township PDC officials collected cash from some residents and made others purchase jatropha from the forest department.

A source closed to the Township PDC office in Three Pagoda said at a recent quarterly meeting, held in September, U Myo Kyi ordered one hundred thousand trees to be planted this year. According to the source, the order applies to an estimated eight hundred households in Kyo-Ha-Blu, Jown-Kwee and Chaung Zone villages.

Villagers elsewhere in Mon State have reported similar requirements. In July, authorities in Ye Township required residents to pay for the replanting of dead or unhealthy saplings. And in Mudon Township, plantation owners have even been ordered to cut down rubber trees and replace them with jatropha.

The project is part of the central government’s country-wide plan to harness physic nuts as an energy source, which can theoretically be processed and used for fuel. Though the plant is poisonous and detrimental to soil fertility, in 2004 the regime began requiring each state or division to plant five hundred thousand jatropha trees. Farming physic nut promises no economic return, however, for there is no market for the nuts and no infrastructure with which they can be processed into fuel.

“This project will never succeed if it continues this way. All levels of government are just implementing the plans for show. They know that as long as this project keeps going, they can earn extra income,” says A Htoo, 35, a rubber plantation owner from Joe-Ha-Blu village. “After we plant the trees, who will take care of them? These saplings will die soon, and we will have to pay and replant again next time. This cycle will never end.”

Written by HURFOM · Filed Under News