On June 5, Myanmar announced two new policies—the National Environmental Policy and the Myanmar Climate Change Policy—for addressing the country's environmental management and climate change strategies. The two policies, which explicitly recognize the rising threat of extreme weather and other impacts of climate change to the country's economic and social development, aim to transform Myanmar into a climate-resilient, low-carbon society.

Already party to the Paris Agreement and UN sustainable development goals for the reduction of hydrofluorocarbons, Myanmar is moving forward in revising its national environmental policy, which could be implemented as early as 2017. The new policy will address climate change, pollution, and waste from the expansion of industry, as well as environmental harm caused by natural resource exploitation.

Starting April 1, Myanmar will ban the export of raw timber logs in an effort to put conservation above profit. The country has some of Asia’s most significant expanses of forests, but these forests have been decimated by the former military junta’s policies; between 1990 and 2010, forest cover shrank from 58% of total land area to 47%. In addition to the ban, the new reformist government, which took over in 2011, plans to reduce the amount of teak it allows to be removed from forests by 80%.

As Western governments lift sanctions on an increasingly open and democratic Myanmar, the influx of foreign capital and the development it brings will threaten the nation's natural resources, experts warn. Home to the world's largest tiger preserve and impressive biodiversity, the nation's brutal human rights record brought sanctions that protected remote areas by preventing development. This protection is now threatened, as China and Japan make plans to open transportation corridors through Myanmar's jungles.