MYANMAR environmentalists have welcomed a decision by the six-member Greater Mekong Sub-region grouping to establish a series of conservation corridors aimed at preserving wildlife and forests. The decision to launch the Biodiversity Conservation Corridors Initiative was made at a GMS summit in Kunming, the capital of China’s Yunnan Province, on July 5.

The chairman of the Yangon-based Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association, U Uga, said he appreciated the decision because most biodiversity features in GMS countries were regionally significant and some were globally outstanding.

The ten-year initiative, to be implemented in three phases, has the backing of the Asian Development Bank and forms part of its long-term conservation plan for the GMS countries, which apart from Myanmar and China are Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The United Nations Environment Program and such organisations as the World Conservation Union, Birdlife International and the Wildlife Conservation Society are also supporting the plan.

The proposed biodiversity corridors have different forms, with some as continuous strips of land and others serving as “stepping stones” of suitable habitat that connect larger areas.

Under the initiative, parts of Myanmar’s territory were included in two of nine selected priority areas because of their biodiversity importance and vulnerability.

Myanmar territory is included in two of the biggest designated areas. The Mekong headwaters area covers parts of Yunnan Province, Shan State and Laos and the western forest complex, straddling the Myanmar-Thai border, covers Tanintharyi Division and parts of Mon and Kayin states.

U Uga said the two areas included some of the region’s richest ecosystems for birds and mammals and have also been identified as being important for the conservation of elephants and tigers.

U Uga said the areas of Myanmar included in the initiative have globally outstanding biodiversity features. The Tanintharyi forest complex was especially significant because of its plant diversity and intact remnants of rare Sundiac lowland forests in the Ngawun Reserved Forest.

U Uga said one of the most significant developments involving the Tanintharyi forest complex was the rediscovery there in 2003 of the critically endangered Gurney’s Pitta, which was first recorded in the area about 80 years previously.
In the first phase of the initiative, from 2005 to 2008, conservation corridors will be set up at five pilot sites in Cambodia, Yunnan Province, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. More corridors will be developed in the second phase, from 2009 to 2011, and the third phase from 2012 to 2014, will focus on consolidating the nine selected areas and corridors.

There was disappointment that Myanmar was not included in pilot sites. U Uga said many international conservationists agreed that the Tanintharyi forest complex deserved the highest investment priority for biodiversity conservation.
“Adequate conservation measures were needed immediately,” he said.
The executive director of the Biodiversity and Nature Conservation Association, Dr Htin Hla, also believed that the Sundiac lowland forests should have been chosen as a pilot site.

Dr Htin Hla was a member of the team which rediscovered the Gurney’s Pitta in the forest complex in 2003.

The initiative will also focus on reducing poverty, defining appropriate land-use and establishing management regimes.