Nickel and Dimed on frog mountain
Our motorbikes crossed flimsy bamboo bridges in western Sagaing Division, a landscape still showing the devastation of 2015’s floods. Shifting gears up a twisting, muddy hill trail took us over the border to Chin State. There, several villages are tucked into the forested slopes of Mwe Taung and Phar Taung (Snake Mountain and Frog Mountain). I was visiting Phar Taung with Chinland Natural Resources Watch Group, a small but resolute organization of young environmental ground-truthers. On reaching Dimzang village we were greeted with tea leaf salad and smoked venison. Dimzang is home to Zomi ethnic subsistence farmers who supplement their crops by hunting and gathering bamboo in Phar Taung’s forests. Loggers from Sagaing Division often clear cut trees there. “The logging is done illegally, but we cannot stop them. The government doesn’t take action,” a villager complained. Many of Dimzang’s young people have left to work in Malaysia or Singapore.
