Myanmar’s Pangolins: Conservation Crisis at China’s Border

Myanmar occupies one of the most critical and most troubled positions in global pangolin conservation. Two species — the Indochinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) and the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) — share habitat in the country’s forests. Both are Critically Endangered. Both are relentlessly trafficked north across a 2,200-kilometre border to China. And since the February 2021 military coup, the conservation infrastructure that once tried to protect them has been severely disrupted.

Two Species, One Country

Myanmar sits at the biogeographic crossroads of South and Southeast Asia, which is why it supports two pangolin species where most countries host only one.

The Indochinese pangolin (Manis pentadactyla) occupies the northern and central highland forests, from the Kachin hills down through the Sagaing Region. It is the same species found in southwestern China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. Adults weigh 2–7 kg and favour hill evergreen and mixed deciduous forest at elevations between 300 and 1,500 metres. Its range in Myanmar is poorly defined because systematic camera-trap surveys have never covered the whole country.

The Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) is distributed across the lowland and coastal forests of the south and east — Tanintharyi Region, the Shan Plateau fringes, and the Ayeyarwady Delta edge. It is a larger animal, reaching up to 10 kg, and is more strongly associated with lowland tropical forest. The two species’ ranges are thought to overlap in a broad transitional band through central Myanmar, but verified co-occurrence data is sparse.

Both species are listed on CITES Appendix I (zero commercial trade permitted since 2017) and are classified as Critically Endangered by the IUCN. Myanmar’s own Protection of Wildlife and Wild Plants and Conservation of Natural Areas Law (1994, amended 2018) prohibits hunting and trade, but enforcement has always been the critical gap.

The Trafficking Pipeline to China

Myanmar is the single most important overland transit country for pangolins entering China. The geography explains why: the two countries share a border running from the Hkakabo Razi massif in the north to the Mekong River junction in the east, with numerous official and unofficial crossing points.

TRAFFIC and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) have documented the key routes. Muse, opposite the Chinese city of Ruili in Yunnan, handles the largest volume of cross-border wildlife trade in Asia by value. Pangolins — live animals, frozen carcasses, and separated scales — move through Muse under cover of timber, agricultural goods, and legitimate commercial shipments.

Tachileik, in eastern Shan State opposite Mae Sai (Thailand), is a second major node. Wildlife from Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand’s borders moves through this triangle before continuing to China or to domestic markets in Shan State. Large seizures of pangolin scales — some exceeding 500 kg in a single haul — have been documented here and in nearby Mongla, a semi-autonomous zone that has operated effectively outside Myanmar law for decades.

Mongla Special Region No. 4 on the Mekong contained open wildlife markets that sold protected species including live pangolins with near impunity until a reported crackdown in 2019. Documented by multiple NGO reports, Mongla illustrates how ungoverned border zones function as supply nodes for Chinese demand.

Seizure records — representing only a fraction of actual trade — reveal the scale of extraction. Between 2010 and 2020, over 300,000 kg of pangolin scales were seized globally, with Myanmar identified as source or transit country in a significant proportion of cases.

The Hukawng Valley and Kachin Forests

Myanmar’s most significant intact forest landscape for pangolin conservation is the Hukawng Valley in Kachin State, declared part of the world’s largest tiger reserve in 2004. The valley’s remote hill evergreen and dipterocarp forests support Indochinese pangolins alongside tigers, clouded leopards, and sun bears.

Until 2021, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) maintained a field programme here, conducting camera-trap surveys, ranger training, and community engagement. Conservation work required navigating relationships with both government and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), which controlled much of the area under ceasefire arrangements. KIA authorities had their own reasons to control poaching within their territory, making this cooperation productive.

Post-coup, those arrangements collapsed. WCS Myanmar, like most international conservation organisations, dramatically reduced field operations after 2021. The practical effect has been a near-total withdrawal of systematic pangolin monitoring from the Hukawng Valley.

Post-Coup Conservation Collapse

The February 2021 coup by the Tatmadaw has been catastrophic for conservation in ways that extend beyond ranger access.

Ranger capacity has collapsed. The Forest Department, managing 37 protected areas across Myanmar, was partially dismantled after the coup. Many rangers joined the Civil Disobedience Movement. Others were reassigned or fled. Protected areas with nominal staff have in practice been largely unpatrolled since early 2021.

Illegal logging has surged. Satellite monitoring via Global Forest Watch documented significant increases in forest clearing in border regions from 2021 onward. Logging at this scale fragments habitat and opens road access for poachers.

Conflict hunting has increased. Myanmar’s kyat lost over 60% of its value against the US dollar between 2021 and 2023. As alternative livelihoods contracted, the economics of pangolin poaching became more attractive even at suppressed prices.

Judicial enforcement is absent. Myanmar’s wildlife protection laws remain on the books, but the court system has been largely non-functional since 2021. Even when seizures occur, prosecution and conviction rarely follow.

What Conservation Survives

Despite this context, conservation has not ceased entirely — it has shifted form. Local civil society organisations and individual researchers, operating under significant personal risk, continue to collect presence data in accessible areas. Camera trap networks maintained by community monitors in Kayah State and southern Shan State have continued to generate observations.

China’s 2020 removal of pangolin scales from the Pharmacopoeia of the People’s Republic of China represents a meaningful demand-side intervention, though substitute traditional medicine markets and demand for scales as status tokens persist. Cross-border enforcement collaboration with Chinese authorities contributed to several large seizures at Ruili between 2019 and 2022.

Conservation Priorities

Given extreme constraints, conservation priorities must be triage-focused:

1. Support locally-led monitoring — Fund community-based monitors with secure, anonymised data collection to protect participants.
2. Maintain downstream seizure pressure — Strengthening capacity in Thailand, China, and Vietnam reduces trafficking profitability even with weakened enforcement inside Myanmar.
3. Document ethnic armed organisation policies — Several EAOs controlling significant forest territory have developed environmental policies. Engaging where possible may be the most practical leverage available.
4. Preserve institutional knowledge — Rangers and researchers who have left Myanmar or stopped active work represent an irreplaceable knowledge base. Keeping them connected ensures capacity can be rebuilt when conditions allow.
5. Reduce Chinese demand — Long-term, the trafficking pipeline runs on consumer demand. Behaviour change campaigns and enforcement of the Pharmacopoeia delisting represent the highest-leverage intervention point.

Myanmar’s pangolin crisis is not separable from its political crisis. There is no conservation solution that bypasses the need for political stabilisation and restored rule of law. But within those constraints, documented local effort, seizure intelligence, and demand reduction work can limit the damage until conditions allow more direct field engagement.

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