The ground shook as the big mining companies turned to dynamite and large extraction machines, according to Yup Zau Hkawng, a local mining company owner. “What would have been extracted in 10 years took one month,” he said.

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The breakneck mining ground to a halt as the new government, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, took over this year. As the cronies feared, the government has begun to take stock of the devastation in the restricted Hpakant region in northern Kachin State.

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The region, source of most of the world’s high quality jade, produced $31 billion of the stone in 2014, according to a report by the rights group Global Witness. Much of it was smuggled over the border to China.

Now, mining has been temporarily suspended and new licenses placed on hold until environmental impact studies can be conducted.

Despite the lingering concerns, the country’s jade industry got a boost Wednesday.

President Obama — meeting with Suu Kyi at the White House — announced that due to “progress seen over the last several months” the United States is “now prepared” to lift remaining economic sanctions it imposed on Burma’s brutal military regime more than two decades ago. This includes a longtime ban on import and purchase of Burmese jade and rubies and removing dozens of companies and individuals from a Treasury Department blacklist.

“It is the right thing to do in order to ensure that the people of Burma see rewards from a new way of doing business and a new government,” Obama said.

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Suu Kyi and her National League for Democracy party were elected in a landslide in November, the first relatively free and fair election in decades in Burma, also known as Myanmar. Yet the military retains sweeping control over law enforcement, key ministries and state industries.

John Sifton, the Asia Advocacy Director of Human Rights Watch, said that the proposed lifting of sanctions on import of jade and other gems largely benefits the military and their cronies, not ordinary Burmese. Without sanctions, he said, Suu Kyi has forfeited important sway she needed to deal with the generals going forward.