The mangrove forests of Southeast Asia are highly biodiverse and provide multiple ecosystem services upon which millions of people depend. Mangroves enhance fisheries and coastal protection, and store among the highest densities of carbon of any ecosystem globally. Mangrove forests have experienced extensive deforestation owing to global demand for commodities, and previous studies have identified the expansion of aquaculture as largely responsible. The proportional conversion of mangroves to different land use types has not been systematically quantified across Southeast Asia, however, particularly in recent years. In this study we apply a combined geographic information system and remote sensing method to quantify the key proximate drivers (i.e., replacement land uses) of mangrove deforestation in Southeast Asia between 2000 and 2012. Mangrove forests were lost at an average rate of 0.18% per year, which is lower than previously published estimates. In total, more than 100,000 ha of mangroves were removed during the study period, with aquaculture accounting for 30% of this total forest change. The rapid expansion of rice agriculture in Myanmar, and the sustained conversion of mangroves to oil palm plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia, are identified as additional increasing and under-recognized threats to mangrove ecosystems. Our study highlights frontiers of mangrove deforestation in the border states of Myanmar, on Borneo, and in Indonesian Papua. To implement policies that conserve mangrove forests across Southeast Asia, it is essential to consider the national and subnational variation in the land uses that follow deforestation.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/113/2/344.full.pdf

Rates and drivers of mangrove deforestation in Southeast Asia, 2000–2012

The Mekong River Basin, site of the biggest inland fishery in the world, is undergoing massive hydropower development. Planned dams will block critical fish migration routes between the river's downstream floodplains and upstream tributaries. Here we estimate fish biomass and biodiversity losses in numerous damming scenarios using a simple ecological model of fish migration. Our framework allows detailing trade-offs between dam locations, power production, and impacts on fish resources. We find that the completion of 78 dams on tributaries, which have not previously been subject to strategic analysis, would have catastrophic impacts on fish productivity and biodiversity. Our results argue for reassessment of several dams planned, and call for a new regional agreement on tributary development of the Mekong River Basin.

Trading-off Fish Biodiversity, Food Security and Hydropower in the Mekong River Basin

The authors test Kantian and realist theories of interstate conflict using data extending over more than a century, treating those theories as complementary rather than competing. As the classical liberals believed, democracy, economic interdependence, and international organizations have strong and statistically significant effects on reducing the probability that states will be involved in militarized disputes. Moreover, the benefits are not limited to the cold war era. Some realist influences, notably distance and power predominance, also reduce the likelihood of interstate conflict. The character of the international system, too, affects the probability of dyadic disputes. The consequences of having a strong hegemonic power vary, but high levels of democracy and interdependence in the international system reduce the probability of conflict for all dyads, not just for those that are democratic or dependent on trade.

The Kantian Peace: The Pacific Benefits of Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations, 1885-1992

1. Introduction 2. Fear, interest and honor 3. The spirit and its expression 4. The ancient world 5. Medieval Europe 6. From Sun King to Revolution 7. Imperialism and World War I 8. World War II 9. Hitler to Bush and beyond 10. General findings and conclusions.

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A Cultural Theory of International Relations

Authoritarian environmentalism is a non-participatory approach to public policy-making and implementation in the face of severe environmental challenges. Using the case of China's climate change policy, the meaning, causes, and consequences of authoritarian environmentalism are explored. A key finding is that authoritarian environmentalism is more effective in producing policy outputs than outcomes. Theoretical and policy implications follow.

https://people.uwec.edu/jamelsem/papers/CC_Literature_Web_Share/Policy/CC_Authoritarian_Environmentalism_China_Gilley_2012.pdf

Authoritarian environmentalism and China's response to climate change

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Eyewitness to Early Reform in Myanmar

Since 2011, Myanmar's leaders have concentrated on ensuring the success of their overall political transition, given the expectations created after the ‘Arab Spring’ of 2011–2012. Not surprisingly, designing a new national security policy was less a priority than achieving ‘peace’; national security was viewed as a matter of continuity rather than transition. Moreover, many of the reformist objectives of the political transition were not applied to the evolution of a new national security strategy or to the challenge of adjusting national security policies. Indeed, many historically unacceptable military practices—human rights abuses, targeting of civilian populations in insurgency areas and acting outside the law in confiscating land, labour and resources—continued. While this different approach to national security reflected ingrained sensitivity on the part of Myanmar's leadership, reluctance to expose national security policy to scrutiny and determination to retain political control, they are not necessarily unreceptive to overseas experiences.

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Strategic Choices in Myanmar's Transition and Myanmar's National Security Policies

As Myanmar readies itself for the second national conference on its ‘new’ peace process in February 2017, an update on outstanding issues with Myanmar's peace process may be timely. It is hardly surprising that, despite the months of preparation for the second Panglong Conference in August or September 2016, there was little or no change in the realities on the ground in Myanmar during the year: armed incidents between the Burmese military and armed ethnic groups continued in the days leading up to that conference, whether or not official ceasefires had been signed; armed groups that had sparred with each other regularly continued to do so; and in some cases, clashes occurred between groups that had not actually fought each other for many years.

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Why a National Peace Agreement Is Important for Myanmar

links across the national case studies cannot be traced or explored without considerable effort. While the book’s editors entreat us to envision the broad contours of the forest of Southeast Asia’s recent cultural history, they have not provided sufficient tools to permit readers to see beyond the trees of each country’s cultural and political diversity. Despite these limitations, this book makes a major contribution to the ongoing effort to develop analytical frames that permit us to imagine Southeast Asia as a region marked by a common history of superpower influences yet always tempered by local diversity and persistent efforts at autonomous expression.

In The Name Of Pauk-Phaw: Myanmar's China Policy since 1948

Since the late 1980s, Vietnam, Cambodia, PDR Lao, and Myanmar have been opening their economies to international trade and investment. With the exception of Myanmar, the reforms have yielded impressive results, but the process is far from complete. In this enlightening book, a group of leading scholars outline the continuing reform efforts needed to survive the current global recession and place these economies in a competitive position on the recovery of the world economy.

Trevor Wilson

Papers

Eyewitness to Early Reform in Myanmar

Strategic Choices in Myanmar's Transition and Myanmar's National Security Policies

Why a National Peace Agreement Is Important for Myanmar

In The Name Of Pauk-Phaw: Myanmar's China Policy since 1948

The Impact of Globalization on Economic Development in Myanmar