Myanmar’s forests are socially and economically significant to the country because over 70% of the country’s population depends on natural resources for daily needs. We conducted this study with the aim of assessing the extent to which direct and indirect (tangible) benefits of mangrove forest contribute to local livelihoods in the Ayeyarwaddy Region, Myanmar. We used a questionnaire survey (n = 185 households), interview and group discussion for data collection. The study shows that 43% of total household income is generated through selling of forest products collected from the mangrove forest such as firewood, fishes, crabs and prawn, whereas agricultural and non-farm incomes were found to be 25% and 32% of total income, respectively. The result prevails that income from the mangrove forest products for fish, crab, prawn and firewood is specifically 36%, 28%, 9% and 27%, respectively. Hence, we confirmed that local livelihood mainly depends on the mangrove forest ecosystem.

Historically, China has exhibited spatial differentiation in issues ranging from population distribution to ecological or economic development; forest pest-control work exemplifies this tendency. In recent times, global warming, man-made monoculture tree-plantations, increasing human population density, and intensified international trade aggravate forest pest outbreaks. Although the Chinese government has complied with internationally recommended practices, some aspects of pest management remain unaddressed due to existing differential regional imbalance in forest pest distribution and control capacities. Evidence shows that the high-income provinces in the south have taken advantage of economic and technological superiority, resulting in the adoption of more efficient pest-control measures. In contrast, the economically underdeveloped provinces of the northwest continue to experience a paucity of financial support that has led to serious threats of pest damage that almost mirror the demarcations of the Hu Huanyong Line. In this paper, we propose the introduction of a Public–Private–Partnership (PPP) model into forest pest control and the combination of the national strategies to enact regional prevention measures to break away from current spatially differentiated trends in China.