A new study suggests paleontological research has directly benefited from the conflict in Myanmar, which has created opportunities for ethically questionable mining, trade, and collecting practices.
The team also found a shift in the top countries publishing amber papers. Before 2014, the United States dominated, with 69 Myanmar amber papers. After that year, China quickly rose to the top, with 417 papers. “China has been sort of a juggernaut for the study of Burmese amber,” Grimaldi says. “They were monopolizing the commercial market.”
The researchers argue the dramatic rise in Myanmar amber research can be explicitly linked to political, legal, and economic changes. Around 2010, China tapped out its amber mines, whereas amber from neighboring Myanmar was ever-more-accessible in the Tengchong markets, Raja Schoob says. That’s why China has become the biggest producer of papers, she says. “It really explained a lot about how we got to where we are,” Dunne adds.
But other researchers say the boom in amber research simply reflects academic interest. Shuo Wang, a paleontologist at the Qingdao University of Science and Technology, calls the new paper “very comprehensive.” But, she says, “There are several exaggerations and some mistakes.” She argues the 2014 boom was due to interest from a group of palaeoentomology researchers from China, who were inspired by a 2013 conference.
Wang agrees that for ethical reasons, paleontologists should restrict access to new amber. But she thinks scientists should be able to study materials obtained in the past, even if they lack documents establishing provenance. The Fushun Amber Institute, for example, has been collecting Myanmar amber since the beginning of the 2000s, and has many specimens still to be studied.
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