Everyday rickety homes in a remote Myanmar village inch closer to a cliff edge as bulldozers owned by the nation’s elite claw the earth beneath them, ravenously hunting jade to feed China’s multi-billion US dollar demand.
“That is our space. Now they are entering through the places where we live,” Daw Kareen said, pointing at a water-filled ravine in the jade mining area of Hpakant in northern Kachin State.
The houses precariously perched alongside sometimes collapse in an area where local protests have long gone unheard by authorities in the “grip” of mining firms, the 44-year-old added.
Secluded Hpakant, encircled by raging ethnic war, is a treasure trove for Myanmar’s wealthiest, who monopolize the world’s primary supply of a stone that has almost mystical reverence in China.
Jade was the preserve of the military under junta rule and despite a fanfare of reforms, a new government dominated by former generals has maintained secrecy around the industry since coming to power in 2011.
Ahead of key elections next month, likely to be swept by Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, locals report an accelerating frenzy of environmental destruction as firms dynamite hills and gouge deeper into the earth.
Fears of vast corruption center on the discrepancy between official Myanmar jade sales and recorded Chinese precious stone imports from the nation, which last year amounted to US$3.4 billion and US$12 billion respectively.
However, in a new report published on Friday, advocacy group Global Witness estimates the value of jade produced last year was actually far greater, at US$31 billion — nearly half of impoverished Myanmar’s GDP.
It said most of the profits are going to powerful military and ex-junta figures as the best jade is smuggled directly into China across the border near Hpakant.
Once cloaked by dense jungle, the area is now ringed by naked hills, exposing it to frequent monsoon landslides and a ferocious tropical sun.
Local activists say dozens of miners have died in recent months on unsteady mounds of rubble left by mechanized diggers, or falling to their deaths on illicit nighttime jade hunts on the sheer cliffs.
“It is hell on earth — have no illusions,” an aid worker with knowledge of the region said.
Abundant heroin is commonly used to dull pain and hunger during long day shifts, but Hpakant is also a place of legendary promise, where everyone knows someone who made their fortune.
Any seemingly nondescript boulder might harbor a vivid green heart and miners become expert at tapping through masses of grey stones, listening for the distinct tone that signals jade.
Thein Zaw Win was driven to the wild northern frontier by money problems at his family farm in central Monywa three years ago.
However, the 20-year-old has sent US$4,000 a year home from scouring the waste rubble.
“If I dig every day in this hole, I hope someday I will get rich,” he said, carrying a chunk of jade he had just found.
Praised by Confucius as a symbol of virtue and known as the “stone of heaven,” jade has been prized in China for centuries.
Nephrite, often a milky peppermint, has long been mined in China, but it is the translucent green jadeite, or “imperial jade,” that is most sought after — and almost all the world’s supply comes from Hpakant.
While evaluating a chunk of gold is a simple matter of carats and ounces, jade prices are judged on a multitude of subtle variations of shade, luster and the craftsmanship with which it has been carved.
“A bracelet can be US$5 or US$5 million,” said a Myitkyina businessman, asking not to be named.
In glitzy shops in Hong Kong and China, monied consumers can select from an array of jade jewelry and ornaments — ranging from the color of kingfisher wings to “mutton fat” cream.
“The younger generation want to have a pair of jadeite earrings or a necklace,” said Vickie Sek, Asia head of jewelry for Christie’s in Hong Kong.
However, she added that the highest-quality Myanmar jadeite is becoming rarer.
In Kachin, locals fear they are losing a crucial natural resource.
The Myitkyina businessman said bigger machines are now being used to remove the jade as quickly as possible, estimating at least 70 percent of the best quality stones are smuggled over the border.
“In 50 years, we will be visiting our jade in China,” he said.
Global Witness has linked the trade to Myanmar’s military, cronies and drug barons, and said it fuels Kachin’s bloody conflict.
It wants jade to undergo the same transparency reforms that swept the oil and gas industry as part of a bid to join the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, an international scheme ensuring ordinary people share the rewards of a nation’s natural bounty.
“You have to question a reform process that misses the most valuable industry in the country,” Juman Kubba of Global Witness said.
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