Kachin State Research Articles

<p align="left"><strong><em>Phalaenopsis putaoensis</em> (Orchidaceae: Epidendroideae, Vandeae), a new species from Kachin State, Myanmar</strong></p>

Phalaenopsis putaoensis, a new species of Orchidaceae, is described and illustrated from Putao, Kachin State, Myanmar. Phalaenopsis putaoensis is close to Phalaenopsis honghenensis and P. wilsonii but can be easily distinguished from the latter two by having falcate lateral lobes adorned with antennae–like appendages and rhombic middle lobe with wartlike calli on disk. A preliminary assessment of the risk of extinction of this new species is Critically Endangered (CR).

Border Governance in Kachin State, Myanmar: Un/caring states and aspirant state building during humanitarian crises

AbstractSince 2011 renewed fighting between the Myanmar military and the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) has triggered the internal displacement of more than 100,000 people in Kachin state. This article examines how care practices and care ethics influence border governance in the context of humanitarian concerns in Kachin state in northern Myanmar, which shares a border with China. The situation in Kachin state at the China-Myanmar border reveals the contrasting territorial logics at stake, the contingency of governance at a time of political transition, and distinct ‘regimes of care’, as manifested through humanitarian relief, which all contribute towards border governance. Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews, the article highlights how care deficits are met by a separatist government, community organizations (both faith-based and secular), and diaspora populations which mobilize a range of networks and resources—forming webs of connections and interfacing with one another—to provide humanitarian relief. However, their actions and the ensuing flows of care could produce or deepen political subjectivities that are geared towards territorial contestation and separatism, thus changing expressions of border governance. The article further observes that the Kachin situation has wider implications for the peace negotiations taking place at the national level in Myanmar.

Rediscovery and distribution extension of the rare Kukri Snake, Oligodon hamptoni Boulenger, 1918 (Reptilia, Serpentes, Colubridae), with the first record of this species from China

Oligodon hamptoniis a rare species of Kukri Snake known from only two specimens, both collected nearly a century ago in northern Myanmar. Here, we report the third record of this species based on a photograph taken in Mt. Gaoligongshan, Tengchong City, Yunnan Province, China, approximately 235 km northeast of the nearest record in Bhamo District, Kachin State, Myanmar. We also provide a detailed redescription of the holotype, showing that the photo record from Mt. Gaoligongshan can be unambiguously identified to this species. This rediscovery represents the first observation ofO. hamptoniin China and is the first report of this species in almost 100 years.

The politics of sexual violence in the Kachin conflict in Myanmar

ABSTRACT Conflict-related sexual violence has been the focus of significant international activism and policy attention. International legal norms and frameworks have evolved to recognize it as a war crime, and a representation of sexual violence as a “weapon of war” is now widely endorsed. This article examines how international norms about conflict-related sexual violence are adopted and utilized in multiple ways in the armed conflict in Kachin state in northern Myanmar. Throughout decades of civil war, international norms on sexual violence have constituted key resources for international advocacy and awareness raising by local women’s rights activists. Further, activists have drawn on international norms to effect changes in gendered relations of power within their own communities. However, international norms on sexual violence in conflict have also been effectively used as tools for ethno-nationalist identity politics, rallying support behind the armed insurgency and mobilizing women’s unpaid labor in the service of war. Thus, international norms on conflict-related sexual violence have simultaneously opened up space for women’s empowerment and political agency and reproduced gendered forms of insecurity and marginalization. Exploring these contradictions and complexities, this analysis generates novel insights into the politics of international norms in contexts of armed conflict.

SPECIAL ECONOMIC ZONES, THE BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE AND THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF KACHIN STATE

Kachin individuals and organizations operate within a dense and complex web of domestic and cross-border links that integrate them into a series of network relationships with communities around them. Problems with governance, lack of ability in terms of nation-building and the prevalence of high-risk economic activities have been some of the factors that have constrained economic growth for the State, which represents a similar situation for other spatially outlying people of Myanmar such as the Naga and the Chin. Some limited attempts have been made to create coherent economic organizations so as to help to promote peaceful governance of the land and the needed replacement of opium growing offers an opportunity for cash crop production and exporting that has been successfully exploited elsewhere. However, limitations to the labour force and to resource management capability mean that endogenous economic development is a very limited prospect. An available alternative to internal development is to be the recipient of externally imposed developmental initiatives. Notable among these initiatives is an industrial park or a special economic zone to be built by Chinese capital, such as the proposed Kanpiketi border park. Such an initiative would take its place alongside existing and proposed Chinese projects in Kyaukphyu, Yangon and elsewhere, which have achieved mixed levels of success. Is it possible that such projects, as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative outreach program, could offer meaningful and sustainable improvement to the standard of living of people in Kachin State? If so, what would be the impact of a new mode of economic activity on existing patterns of Kachin ways of life? This paper uses a case study approach rooted in management science to investigate the possibilities of these initiatives with a view to understanding the potential of such changes.

Genome Sequence Resource of 'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus' Strain Myan16 from Myanmar.

'Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus,' an uncultured α-proteobacterium, is associated with citrus huanglongbing (HLB, yellow shoot disease), a destructive disease threatening citrus production worldwide. Here, we reported the draft genome sequence of 'Ca. L. asiaticus' strain Myan16 from an HLB-affected lime tree in Myitkyina, Kachin State, Myanmar. The strain Myan16 genome is 1,229,102 bp with an average G+C content of 36.4%, along with a circular prophage: P-Myan16-2 (36,303 bp, type 2). This is the first genome sequence of a 'Ca. L. asiaticus' strain from Myanmar, which will enrich the current 'Ca. L. asiaticus' genome sequence database and facilitate HLB epidemiology research in Asia and world.

A first member of bamboo-feeding lineage plant bug (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Miridae: Mecistoscelini) in mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber

The first fossil species of bamboo-feeding plant bug lineage, Mecistoscelini is presented with description of a new taxon, Cretamystilus herczeki gen. et sp. nov. based on a specimen in mid-Cretaceous amber probably from the Hukawng Valley, Kachin State in northern Myanmar. Morphological characters of this fossil specimen and similarity to the extant genus Mystilus Distant are presented. The importance of pronotum and femoral structures is presented for character evolution in Mecistoscelini, and host association with the bamboo plants is hypothesized.

Results from implementing a cohesive strategy and standardized monitoring programme for hygiene kit distribution in Myanmar

Hygiene kits are commonly distributed in humanitarian emergencies to interrupt disease transmission and provide dignity. Despite being commonly implemented, hygiene kit distribution interventions are under-researched, and there is a lack of knowledge on kit efficacy and effectiveness. In Myanmar, the WASH cluster developed a national hygiene kit distribution and monitoring strategy. The research was aimed at determining the effectiveness of this strategy in the context of protracted internally displaced persons camps in Myanmar. To understand programme strategy, we reviewed documents against inclusion criteria; extracted and categorized data for included documents; analysed data; and summarized results. Twenty-six documents met the inclusion criteria of describing strategy development (47 per cent), monitoring in Rakhine (47 per cent) or Kachin State (3 per cent), or monitoring menstrual health and hygiene programme (3 per cent). We identified the strategy was successfully adopted and adapted for Kachin and Rakhine states; however, limitations were identified in receiving consistent monitoring data. We found hygiene kit distributions need to consider local context, including population mobility, local markets and availability of products, and household expenses and debt. Due to these interrelated factors, the percentage of households selling kit items decreased over time; additionally, soap and sanitary pad presence was significantly associated with household income. Consistently, women reported preferring disposable pads for menstrual health and hygiene due to privacy concerns. Programmatically, it is recommended to adapt hygiene kit distributions to local contexts, continue to distribute hygiene kits in protracted contexts to identified at-risk households, distribute disposable pads, and continue revising and improving strategy and monitoring tools.

Elephant Riders of the Hukawng Valley, Kachin State: Evasive Mobility and Vadological Geography

Elephant Riders of the Hukawng Valley, Kachin State:Evasive Mobility and Vadological Geography Jacob Shell (bio) Introduction Some 40,000 to 50,000 Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) remain in the world today. The number has been shrinking: tallies from the 1990s placed the species-wide population size at around 60,000. Of the remaining Asian elephants, around two-thirds are in the wild, and onethird are in a state of domesticity or captivity (with both the wild and domestic groups' being genetically identical and interchangeable).1 African elephants, by contrast—not the focus of this article—are around ten times more numerous and exist almost entirely in the wild.2 Of the domestic group of Asian elephants, the bestknown, or highest-visibility, are elephants in zoos, tourist parks, and religious parades. However, a substantial portion of the domestic "work elephants," likely around 8,000 or 9,000 overall, operate in much lower-visibility [End Page 261] spheres of economic life, performing human-directed tasks in forested areas (Shell 2019a). Due to their remoteness from the tourist parks and wildlife preserves with which international conservationist and wildlife institutions tend to strike up formal relations, these forestbased work elephants have been mostly overlooked by the international research community—despite the fact that these elephants enjoy better biological outcomes, in terms of lifespan and reproduction, than Asian elephants in tourist compounds or zoos (Clubb et al. 2008; Taylor and Poole 1998; Kurt and U Mar 1996). This grouping of Asian elephants is engaged in a mix of loosely related sylvan logistical activities, entailing off-road or "roadless" logging, cross-forest baggage and passenger transport, and flood-season transport. Elephantbased logging takes place mainly in the teak forests of central Burma, Kachin State in northern Burma, as well as the timber rich forest zones of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, India, and Xayaboury, Laos. To a lesser extent, elephant logging also occurs elsewhere in India, as well as in Sumatra, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. In Burma and northeast India, timber elephants are released into the surrounding forestland on a nightly basis, to seek food and mates—a routine which largely accounts for the improved biological situation of these elephants compared to those kept in walled compounds (Shell 2019a:Ch. 1). This biologically beneficial freedom to roam the forest at night also extends to forest-work elephants doing transportation tasks. Compared with elephant-based logging, elephant-based transportation is far less widespread a practice in the twenty-first century, persisting only in Kachin State in northern Burma, and in some Kachin-adjacent zones of Sagaing Division, Burma, and Arunachal Pradesh, India (see figures 1 and 2 for maps). A heavily forested and resource-rich subregion [End Page 262] of Kachin State called the Hukawng Valley is especially important within this lingering, mostly unnoticed, geography of human transportation which occurs on the backs of elephants (Shell 2019a:Ch. 8; Tucker 2001; Lintner 1990). Because elephant-based transportation, unlike logging, associates the work elephants with activities which are not inherently destructive of forest cover, the practice merits recognition and deeper examination from conservationists, ethnozoologists, and other kinds of environmental researchers. To help generate such recognition, and to gesture at several interrelated courses such deeper examination could follow, this article presents the knowledge conveyed by a Kachin elephant rider from a Hukawng Valley village called Awng Lawt, based on interviews conducted in 2019. This elephant rider provided invaluable information pertaining to various interwoven themes: the reliance of his village, and its forms of local livelihood, upon the involvement of work elephants; significant ethnotribal aspects of this cospecies working dynamic; relations between the village elephants and nearby wild elephants; and relations between the village elephants and the elephant convoys of the Kachin Independence Army (KIA). This article also links information from these interviews to related fieldwork I conducted during 2015–2017 at elephant-logging and elephant-transport zones elsewhere in the region: in particular in the southwestern Kachin Hills, in the forested hills of central Burma, and in the Dihing, Lohit, and Dibang Valleys of eastern Arunachal Pradesh, India. Though the more recent, Hukawng Valley-focused thrust of research is methodologically limited by its ethnographic derivation from one Hukawng Valley interviewee...

New data on the subfamily Attageninae (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) from Cretaceous Burmese amber

A new monotypic genus Cretoattagenus gen. n. (type species: C. coziki sp. n.) is described and illustrated from Cretaceous amber from Kachin State, northern Myanmar. Cretodermestes palpalis Deng, Ślipiński, Ren et Pang, 2017 is illustrated and discussed based on additional material. A list of Dermestidae known from Burmese amber is also given.

Democratization as a Protective Layering for Crimes Against Humanity: The Case of Myanmar

Myanmar has a history of state sanctioned violence against its own people. However, as the regime transition occurs the methods of conducting such violence have also changed. This has not led to an end to violence but an alteration in the methods used by the state. What can be identified is the use of democratic regime transition to legitimise the state’s actions whilst delegitimising the plight of communities that have historically resisted the state. By engaging in the minimal standards of democratic practice whilst developing relations with the international community on the basis of trade, Myanmar has been able to create a protective layering system for its continued human rights abuses within its borderlands. This paper will analyse how Myanmar has effectively coopted the international community into ignoring the continuation of human rights abuses by creating an effectives market for its valuable resources. It will focus on the cases in Karen and Kachin State, two sub-regions within Myanmar that have experienced prolonged conflict and where human rights abuses continue with little oversight from the international community.

Why Decolonising Area Studies is Not Enough: A Case Study of the Complex Legacies of Colonial Knowledge-Making in the Indo-Myanmar Borderlands

Decolonisation has become an important agenda both within academic institutions as well as within wider society in recent years. Yet the term is infrequently sufficiently critiqued or deconstructed to identify precisely what ‘the colonial’ refers to in specific academic contexts and therefore what the process of decolonisation should entail. It remains a relatively over-simplified agenda that easily becomes strategic rather than transformative of knowledge institutions. The focus on restructuring identifiable components, such as reading lists, limits discussion and critique of what decolonisation as an inherently more complex set of challenges should involve. The teaching and research related to Area Studies makes for an interesting example of the unresolved challenges of ‘decolonisation’ in academia. This paper reflects upon the complex discontinuities in understandings of ‘the Colonial’ in the Indo-Myanmar borderlands, challenging us to reflect more fully on what ‘decolonisation’ should entail in relation to academic interactions with this space. Specifically, it considers that region of the trans-Patkai mountain range where its corridors today connect modern north east India with the northern tip of Sagaing Division and Kachin State in Myanmar. The paper distinguishes itself from that broad literature on decolonisation by considering the ways in which colonial knowledge making intersects with contemporary knowledge making about this region, and the legacies of those historical constructions in the present. The often-unconscious ways in which academics and ‘experts’ are culpable in sustaining colonial representations that embed this region’s economic and political marginalisation, even when they assume that attention to a decentred ‘local’ voice is being magnified, means that there is also a need to think about the decolonisation of knowledge of this area more deeply. This article intends to contribute to that debate.

Temporal analysis of water, sanitation, and hygiene data from knowledge, attitudes, and practices surveys in the protracted humanitarian crisis in Myanmar

Abstract Knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) surveys are commonly conducted by humanitarian actors at project baseline and endline. We hypothesized summarized KAP data could inform water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programming and strategies. In conflict-affected Myanmar, the WASH Cluster collated KAP documents from 2011 to 2016. After developing a methodology for KAP temporal analysis, we reviewed provided documents against inclusion criteria; extracted and categorized data; created a WASH activities and emergency events timeline; completed temporal analysis; and triangulated and summarized results. Sixteen documents met inclusion criteria assessing WASH data at the national level (19%), in Rakhine (56%) or Kachin State (25%). Twenty-five WASH metrics were extracted and categorized. We found WASH knowledge and attitudes (e.g. handwashing knowledge) increased over time; practices (e.g. handwashing) also increased, but at a lower rate and less consistently; and increases were related to WASH programming. Using this methodology, we identified gaps (safe water storage, risk of children's feces, focus on vulnerable populations), barriers (cultural and religious beliefs), and programmatic recommendations (continue hygiene promotion, focusing on closing gaps, and improve waste collection systems) in Myanmar. Additionally, to enable temporal analysis and improve WASH programming, we recommend WASH Clusters standardize KAP data collection tools and analysis in the future.

A new species of the Pareas monticola complex (Squamata: Serpentes: Pareidae) from Chin Mountains with additions to the Pareas fauna of Myanmar

ABSTRACT A review of the taxonomic status of Pareas monticola (Himalaya slug snake) based on morphological and molecular data revealed a new species from Myanmar. Pareas victorianus sp. nov. Vogel, Nguyen and Poyarkov from the Nat Ma Taung National Park in western Chin State is suggested to be a sister species to P. monticola sensu stricto, and can be separated from the latter by the absence of preoculars, by the subocular separating the eye from the labials, by seven keeled dorsal scale rows at midbody, by a lower number of ventrals (164) and by a lower number of subcaudals (58). Another new population from the Hkakabo Razi National Park in the northernmost part of Kachin State was previously confused with P. monticola, but can be differentiated from the latter and from Pareas victorianus sp. nov. by the presence of preoculars, by the number of ventrals (182) and subcaudals (71), by the absence of dark postorbital stripes, and by the lateral and ventral surfaces of the head with dense brown dusting; we herein refer to this population as Pareas sp. pending further molecular data confirming its taxonomic status. We also confirm the occurrence of P. monticola sensu stricto in Myanmar based on specimens from Kachin State and Sagaing Division. Furthermore, we discuss the actual distribution, genetic differentiation and taxonomic problems of P. monticola species complex. Our work brings the total number of species recognised within the genus Pareas to 20, of which nine species occur in Myanmar. An updated key for the Pareas species of Myanmar is provided. http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:7591231C-475C-4F86-9376-BB48DA937D1A

New combinations and synonyms in Rehderodendron (Styracaceae).

We demonstrate with morphological characters that the species Pterostyrax burmanicus W.W.Sm. & Farrer and Parastyrax macrophyllus C.Y.Wu & K.M.Feng (Styracaceae) are best placed in the genus Rehderodendron Hu. Rehderodendron burmanicum (W.W.Sm. & Farrer) W.Y.Zhao, P.W.Fritsch & W.B.Liao, comb. nov. and Rehderodendron macrophyllum (C.Y.Wu & K.M.Feng) W.Y.Zhao, P.W.Fritsch & W.B.Liao, comb. nov., are created. We also provide a lectotype for R. macrophyllum. These revisions result in the reduction of Pterostyrax Siebold & Zucc. to three species and this genus is no longer considered to be documented from Myanmar. Further, Parastyrax W.W.Sm. becomes a monotypic genus comprising only P. lacei (W.W.Sm.) W.W.Sm., distributed in Kachin State, northeast Myanmar and Yunnan Province, south-western China.

Trihelota, a new and unusual helotid beetle genus from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber (Coleoptera: Helotidae)

A new genus belonging to the cucujoid family Helotidae, Trihelota gen. nov., is described from mid-Cretaceous (ca.99 million years old) amber from Kachin State, northern Myanmar, containing a single species T. fulvata sp. nov. The minute fossil was documented using fluorescence microscopy and X-ray microtomography to reveal fine morphological details. Trihelota is characterised by its transverse head, antennal club about 1.5 times longer than wide, pronotum almost parallel-sided, and elytra not costate. Notably, each elytron possesses three coloured spots, a character unique within Helotidae. The new genus considerably expands the known morphological disparity of Cretaceous helotids. A keyto extinct and extant genera of the family Helotidae is provided along with a checklist of fossil species.

Molecular phylogeny of Asian pipesnakes, genus Cylindrophis Wagler, 1828 (Squamata: Cylindrophiidae), with the description of a new species from Myanmar.

Cylindrophis is a genus of secretive, semi-fossorial, non-venomous snakes comprising 14 species, characterized by a generally cylindrical body, uniform scales (with barely enlarged ventrals), and vestiges of pelvic and limb bones, the latter terminating in a claw lateral to the vent. We reconstructed a concatenated molecular phylogeny of seven taxa of Cylindrophis taxa based on one nuclear (R35) and two mitochondrial (16S, ND2) genes. Analyses recovered the Sri Lankan endemic C. maculatus as sister to all other sampled Cylindrophis. The mainland Southeast Asian species C. burmanus and C. jodiae form successive sister lineages to a monophyletic Wallacean island group containing C. boulengeri, C. isolepis, and C. yamdena. We also describe a new species of Cylindrophis, morphologically similar to C. burmanus, from Kachin State in northern Myanmar. Cylindrophis slowinskii sp. nov. is distinguished from all congeners by the following combination of characters: 19 dorsal scale rows at midbody, 216-220 ventrals, eight subcaudals, a dark venter with > 60 very narrow diffuse pale blotches, and a pale bar running along the posterior border of the prefrontals. In our phylogeny, the new species is strongly supported as the sister species of C. burmanus. It is the 15th currently recognised species in the genus, and the fourth from mainland Southeast Asia.

Myanmar’s Perception and Strategy toward China’s BRI Expansion on Three Major Projects Development: Hedging Strategic Framework with State-Market-Society Analysis

After the political transition of Myanmar in 2011, Myanmar toward China’s engagement strategy has led the changes from the state-to-state relations into the multi-layered relations and even into open domestic and foreign connection. Myanmar’s foreign policy has also challenged the Beijing’s economic and political interests in Myanmar in terms of major economic projects such as the case of Myanmar’s Government one-sided suspension for Myit Sone Dam projects in Kachin State, Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port, New Yangon Development Project, and Special Economic Zones (SEZs) projects along the China-Myanmar Border. In this sense, it could be interesting to find the Myanmar’s hedging policy on China’s engagement and China’s responses to Myanmar’s development. Moreover, Myanmar has agreed the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC) which is strategically important for China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Among the various China’s BRI projects in Myanmar, every case has the different characteristic, pattern, and situation, in terms of the different fundamental interaction relations among the state, market and society. Thus, this research paper seeks the three unique cases of BRI projects in Myanmar from the political economic hedging framework via the state-market-society perspective, such as the Kyauk Phyu Deep Sea Port Project (currently running), Myit Sone Done Projects (currently suspending), and the New Yangon Development Project (still negotiating). Three major projects in Myanmar stand for three different patterns of Myanmar’s state-market-society relations and their general hedging considerations.

Molecular surveillance for drug resistance markers in Plasmodium vivax isolates from symptomatic and asymptomatic infections at the China\u2013Myanmar border

BackgroundIn the Greater Mekong sub-region, Plasmodium vivax has become the predominant species and imposes a major challenge for regional malaria elimination. This study aimed to investigate the variations in genes potentially related to drug resistance in P. vivax populations from the China–Myanmar border area. In addition, this study also wanted to determine whether divergence existed between parasite populations associated with asymptomatic and acute infections.MethodsA total of 66 P. vivax isolates were obtained from patients with acute malaria who attended clinics at the Laiza area, Kachin State, Myanmar in 2015. In addition, 102 P. vivax isolates associated with asymptomatic infections were identified by screening of volunteers without signs or symptoms from surrounding villages. Slide-positive samples were verified with nested PCR detecting the 18S rRNA gene. Multiclonal infections were further excluded by genotyping at msp-3α and msp-3β genes. Parasite DNA from 60 symptomatic cases and 81 asymptomatic infections was used to amplify and sequence genes potentially associated with drug resistance, including pvmdr1, pvcrt-o, pvdhfr, pvdhps, and pvk12.ResultsThe pvmdr1 Y976F and F1076L mutations were present in 3/113 (2.7%) and 97/113 (85.5%) P. vivax isolates, respectively. The K10 insertion in pvcrt-o gene was found in 28.2% of the parasites. Four mutations in the two antifolate resistance genes reached relatively high levels of prevalence: pvdhfr S58R (53.4%), S117N/T (50.8%), pvdhps A383G (75.0%), and A553G (36.3%). Haplotypes with wild-type pvmdr1 (976Y/997K/1076F) and quadruple mutations in pvdhfr (13I/57L/58R/61M/99H/117T/173I) were significantly more prevalent in symptomatic than asymptomatic infections, whereas the pvmdr1 mutant haplotype 976Y/997K/1076L was significantly more prevalent in asymptomatic than symptomatic infections. In addition, quadruple mutations at codons 57, 58, 61 and 117 of pvdhfr and double mutations at codons 383 and 553 of pvdhps were found both in asymptomatic and symptomatic infections with similar frequencies. No mutations were found in the pvk12 gene.ConclusionsMutations in pvdhfr and pvdhps were prevalent in both symptomatic and asymptomatic P. vivax infections, suggestive of resistance to antifolate drugs. Asymptomatic carriers may act as a silent reservoir sustaining drug-resistant parasite transmission necessitating a rational strategy for malaria elimination in this region.

Contributions to the flora of Myanmar from 2000 to 2019

Myanmar is botanically rich and floristically diverse: one of the world's biodiversity hotspots. However, Myanmar is still very unevenly explored, and until a plant checklist was published in 2003, relatively little work was done on its flora. This checklist included 11,800 species of spermatophytes in 273 families. Since this checklist was published, the botanical exploration of Myanmar has accelerated and there have been many additional publications. We therefore surveyed the literature of taxonomic contributions to Myanmar’s vascular flora over the last 20 years (2000–2019) and compiled a list of new and newly described taxa. Our list includes 13 genera, 193 species, 7 subspecies, 19 varieties, and 2 forms new to science; and 3 families, 34 genera, 347 species, 4 subspecies, 7 varieties, and 1 form newly recorded in Myanmar. Altogether, they represent 91 families and 320 genera. Most of the new discoveries belong to 15 families, with more than 25% (146 taxa) belonging to Orchidaceae. These new discoveries are unevenly distributed in the country, with about 41% of the newly discovered species described from Kachin State in northeast Myanmar. This reflects the incompleteness of our current knowledge of the flora of Myanmar and the urgent need for a greatly expanded effort. The completion of the flora of Myanmar requires more fieldwork from north to south, taxonomic studies on new and existing collections, and some mechanism that both coordinates the efforts of various international institutions and initiatives and encourages continued international cooperation. In addition, producing modern taxonomic treatments of the flora of Myanmar requires the participation of experts on all vascular plant families and genera. There is also an urgent need to attract young scientists to plant taxonomy, to work on inventories, identification, nomenclature, herbarium work, and comparative studies.