Even as the first global Tiger Summit of the International Tiger Conservation Forum is being held from November 21 to 24, in St. Petersburg, Russia, environmentalists have been critical of Burma ...
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The Thailand-based Kachin Development Networking Group (KDNG) said in a November 20 statement that it is unrealistic for Burma to attend the summit and talk of its plans to protect tigers, because in 2006 the Yuzana Company, chaired by U Htay Myint, a close associate of Burmese junta leaders, confiscated 200,000 acres in the Hugawng Valley, including land from the Tiger Reserve, to develop sugar cane and tapioca plantations.
The KDNG spokesperson Lashi Ah Nan told Kachin News Group (KNG), “Burma’s plan in 2010 for doubling the population of tigers after 12 years is only a lip service. In reality they (the authorities) are destroying the tiger reserve.”
“If there is no forest and water, how is it possible for a wild animal to survive?” she asked.
The number of tigers in Asia has decreased from 100,000 a hundred years ago to 3,200 at present.
Delegates from 13 countries, including Burma, are discussing how to protect and increase the tiger population in the world for the first time at the summit hosted by Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.
The group plans to double the number of wild tigers by 2022.
A report released by KDNG in August this year tells how bulldozers and backhoes were clearing forests and destroying animal corridors, leaving only the conservation signboards standing, according to Ah Nan.
“We call on all the Summit participants to challenge the Burmese delegation to stop corporate destruction of this important reserve before considering any further tiger conservation programme,” said the KDNG.
“The destruction in Hugawng makes a mockery of the Burma Tiger Plan,” Ah Nan said in the November 20 statement. “Yuzana is doing whatever it likes with the help of the generals and the silence of conservationists. If it is not stopped, the entire reserve is under threat.”
She said encouraging the participation of the local people is important for developing an effective conservation programme.
Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burma, Vietnam, India, Indonesia, Lao, China, Russia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia and Nepal are attending the summit in St. Petersburg.
