Informal and illegal movement in the upper greater mekong subregion
Costs and benefits of informal networks for goods and people
by Lynn Thiesmeyer
Irasec-Observatory, Occasional Paper 03, November 2010, 144 pages.
ISBN: 978-616-90282-8-4
Downloadable for Free.
Costs and benefits of informal networks for goods and people
by Lynn Thiesmeyer
Irasec-Observatory, Occasional Paper 03, November 2010, 144 pages.
ISBN: 978-616-90282-8-4
Downloadable for Free.
Cross-border migration and trafficking are, once again, the focus of intense scrutiny in Southeast Asia. There is a very rapidly increasing number and frequency of informally and illegally migrating persons and the goods they transport and consume. The area of the present research, undertaken during 2009, is currently known as the Quadrangle (Quadripartite) Economic Cooperation Zone, or the Golden Quadrangle. It has been targeted as a special economic cooperation zone, comprising Yunnan Province of China, Luang Nam Tha Province of Northern Laos, Shan State of Northern Myanmar, and Chiang Rai Province of Northern Thailand. The scope of this localisation of small-scale manufacturing and production, and of its logistics—cross-border informal and illegal transport—is vast. The goods surveyed in this research were agriculture products, including herbicides, fertilisers, and pesticides whose contents were unknown or clearly toxic beyond the regionally-agreed standard; there is special reference to illegal logging and timber trafficking from the same regions. The research team consisted of five individuals: the present author, an environmental chemist from Japan, one environmental chemist from Taiwan, a social scientist from Taiwan, and an economist from Myanmar.-
