To know more about Wildlife Conservation in Myanmar and the world at large, Daw May Aung Shwe from MRTV-3 have met personnel Doctor Alan R.Rabinowitzn Director of Science Exploration from Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) based in New York City, United State and asked his experiences.

Could you explain about WCS?
The Wildlife Conservation Society is one of the oldest conservation organizations in the world and it’s the oldest in United States. It was started in 1800 and we worked in about 300 different places in about 200 countries. Our job is mostly to save the world in danger wildlife and to help countries in setting up new parks and new protective areas where both people and wildlife can co-exit together.

Myanmar is a very special country for conservation. I have been working in this field for more than twenty years and I worked in many parts of Asia. I worked in China, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Laos. Of all the places where I worked, Myanmar is the most fascinating to me and the most important. Myanmar has more forest cover left than almost any other country and in the Indo-Burma region. And until recently we have very little idea of what kinds of wildlife still existed in many of the forest remaining in this country. So, I have interested in coming here for may be 15 years and finally I first came here in 1993 in order to help survey what would the government, what would the forest department and find out what animals still exist here and how many of the different in dangerous species there were like rhinos and tigers and elephants.

Tigers are very close to my heart too because I am an expert on big-cats what I worked the most time in my life for big-cats like jackals, leopards and tigers. When I worked in Central America, I worked on jackals. When I worked in Thailand, I worked on leopards. Here, I was very interested in tigers because many scientists thought that Myanmar had the largest tiger population left outside of India. So, we started a tiger survey throughout the country working with the Myanmar Forest Department. Unfortunately, we found that many tigers in this country have been killed by hunters and butchers and sold to the Chinese for traditional medicine. So, Myanmar didn’t have this many tigers we thought. In fact, we estimated finally that the whole country might have no more than 200 to 300 tigers left maximum, probably less. And that’s terrible because this country once has tens of thousands tigers roaming its forest but there were a few places left in Myanmar which still look have good tiger populations and I knew if we could save some of these areas with the forest department then we could make to bring the tiger population back and save for Myanmar. And one of the best places left was the place call Hukaung valley up in northern Myanmar.

Could you tell me about Khakaborazi Wildlife or National Park?
It was very difficult for me. I have hiked and tracked in many parts of the world but the hike up to Mount Khakaborazi was very rough. From the town of Puta-O to the last village called Hondan, it was about 220 miles walk totally and it took us about three and half weeks one way, we can only make about 7 miles a day because every single day was straight up the mountain and straight down the mountain. So we didn’t know where we would stay either if we came to a village we would stay in a village if there was no village we would just camp out. But the country was so beautiful it was all snow-capped we would hike all day down in green valleys with high snow-capped mountain all around us. It was very much live like hiking in these beautiful hidden valleys in the Himalayas for the north. And next where we discovered the new kinds of animals’ species and that’s why living in these little valleys we also found groups of people and villages people with names like the Talu and the Rawan people who are very rarely if they have been came out to civilization, the furthest they have to travel was the Puta-O. Some of these people living in Khakaborazi had never seen a Burmese person not only they never seen a foreigner but they never even seen a Burmese person because they just live way up in these mountains. So, there was a typical type and it’s very tiring some of our people got sick but nobody got very sick. But it was beautiful it was really experience which I treasured for the rest of my life.

Can you give some suggestions on how to protect Myanmar’s environment?
Conservation doesn’t mean that the country stops developing, you can have economic development along with conservation but it has to be balance. And the balance also can help the economic development because conservation means now you have a base for nature tourism as well. So, I think much of the thinking which I am seeing in the government now about conservation is very good because many people in the government are thinking that conservation will help them not only protect the natural beauty of this country but will also serve to be destination which many tourists want to come and visit and that’s very true and that’s a good way to think. So, I think that the way to protect what’s still existing in Myanmar for the future is to consider the most beautiful wild places as new protective areas, new parks and new wildlife sanctuaries. And now well then save it for many generations to come.