MUSE, Burma - Asked if he sees many wild animals in the forests nearby, the head of a village in Shan state near the Burma-China border quips, "You people from the big cities have a better chance to see animals than us, because you have zoos and we have an empty forest."
The signs of the continued cutting of trees are obvious. Everyday, dozens of trucks carrying varied sizes of logs head for the border town of Muse in north-eastern Burma, for export into neighbouring China.
"I travelled from Mandalay to Muse (463.3 kilometres and a twelve-hour journey by car) and on the way I passed at least 40 trucks loaded with heavy logs. I felt disturbed by what I saw," recounts Rangoon journalist Min Kyaw Soe about his trip to Muse, which borders China's south-western Yunnan province.
These truckloads of logs reflect the changes at the border. Biodiversity-rich Yunnan province banned logging in 1998. Thereafter, many timber companies moved to the Burmese side of the border, some clear-cutting in northern Kachin state.
Stories by truck and bus drivers in Muse of how they carry animals into China show how the trade in animals persists, though not as visibly as the timber trade.
A survey from the Yunnan-based Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences states that 900 individual specimens — big animals like tigers, leopards and bears as well as small animals like tortoises, snakes and lizards — have been imported from Burma to Yunnan.
According to survey statistics from 1996 to 1999, 500 tonnes of snakes from Burma were imported to the Chinese border town of Ruili, opposite Muse, for food and traditional medicine.
Firm statistics about the international wildlife trade are hard to come by, though global estimates in reports by the wildlife monitoring group TRAFFIC put this at 15 billion dollars for all wildlife including timber. Conservation groups say the illegal trade reaches eight to 10 billion dollars a year in South-east Asia.
The wildlife trade here has thrived because of the porous land border, the Chinese market for wildlife and huge profits that can be made.
"Poverty pushes people to depend more and more on forests and available natural resources," says Kyi Win, a teacher from Kachin state. But "to poor people, exploiting nature is just to get by. They should feel guilty for this?"
A monk from Kyar Ye village, situated on the Rakhine mountain range of Burma, believes that villagers do not live as simply as they used to. "Formerly, they went into the forest just to find firewood. They were not a danger to the forest animals large and small. Now, when they go into the forest, they do not leave anything that can generate money," he sighs. "They always need money to make ends meet."
Improved road links and communication across the border have made even poor villagers and hunters quite attuned to market forces that help the illicit trade.
Mandalay, Lashio and Muse cities in Burma are now connected by a smooth highway and this is a major trade route between Burma and Yunnan. If people learn that there is a good price for pangolins in China, they go hunting for them. Turtles and otters are rapidly disappearing; pangolins and tigers are already extinct in most parts of Burma.
Burma used to be known as home to the second largest population of tigers in Asia after India. But the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) reveals that less than 100 big cats survive in the wild in the country.
A dead tiger fetches offers of around 1.5 million kyat (1,500 U.S. dollars), according to a hunter from the Lisu ethnic group. "You don't need to bother about selling. No sooner than you have killed a tiger, a trader knows and comes with money to offer you," says Yawi, a 45-year-old Lisu hunter who lives near Lashio in northern Shan state. He has killed 20 tigers, he says.
"If some plants and animals are in demand in China, it is sure that they will disappear here soon as a result," said Myo Win, a trader from the Irrawaddy delta. "Once we had an abundance of freshwater turtles in the delta. But my 10-year-old daughter has never seen a live turtle."
An owl, imported from a neighbouring country like Burma, will be worth 1.6 yuan (20 U.S. cents) in Yunnan, but fetch 1,500 yuan (180 dollars) in the coastal areas of south and east China, according to a China Central Television report.
"Some Myanmar traders...carry and trade anything that can generate profit. So sometimes they will be a wildlife trader, sometimes they will be a trader of any sort," says Tin Than, an academic from WWF Thailand.
Smugglers have different methods of going past checkpoints. One trader reveals that he used to carry one tranquilised small bear to Muse in his coat each time — and has done this more than a dozen times.
Smugglers use little-known forest trails to carry wildlife cargo to China's border, and often give bribes to police and forest patrols, says Than Htay, a former wildlife trader from Rangoon. Asked why he is no longer a wildlife trader, Than Htay explains: "Wildlife is very rare now, and soon will disappear completely. So I think I need to move to a new job."
Consumption in China, where some people take wildlife as food or medicine out of tradition, drives demand. "Name any wild animal and I will give you medicinal properties of that animal," explains one traditional medicine shop owner from the Chinese border town of Wanding.
For believers in traditional medicine, tiger penis is an aphrodisiac, tiger bone is for arthritis, pangolin meat is a delicacy, pangolin scales are for skin infections, the slow Loris is for wound healing. Most of these so-called healing properties have yet to be scientifically proven.
But in Ruili these days, it is not as easy to find restaurants specialising in wild game because local authorities had ordered them to close down.
"Law enforcement is a sure way to change the consumers' practices and stop the wildlife trade. I think fewer people will challenge the law to eat wild game," adds a Chinese border police offer from Wanding. At the Wanding border checkpoint, a billboard in Chinese and Burmese warns that carrying four-legged animals over the border is illegal. Apparently, birds and snakes don't count.
The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 put immense pressure on the Chinese government to deal with the wildlife problem by seizing wildlife products in recent years — scientists believe that the SARS virus first emerged from civet cats in the southern province of Guangdong.
Stricter enforcement of rules in China is good news for Burma's wildlife. "We used to export a lot of snakes to Yunnan. But in the middle of 2004, they suddenly stopped ordering and we lost our snake export market, but we think it's temporary," says Zaw Lin, a wildlife trader from Mandalay.
"The people from the forestry department are doing a good job protecting wildlife as much as they can," says Nay Myo of an environmental non-government group from Rangoon. He pointed to the department's effort to set up wildlife sanctuaries in various areas in Burma. It has 45 protected areas, comprising 5.4 percent of total land area.
In the end, the monk from the Rakhine mountain range says, environmental preservation is linked to values. "We inherit the world from the previous generation and we should pass to the next no less than what we received," he says solemnly.
But "fine words about conservation are not enough for hungry villagers," argues a teacher from Kachin state, Burma. Adds the owner of the traditional medicine shop in Wanding, China: "Why should I abandon the traditional practice of saving human lives to save an animal's life?" (END)
*Myint Zaw of 'Living Colour' wrote this article under the 'Our Mekong: A Vision amid Globalisation' media fellowship programme, implemented by IPS Asia-Pacific with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation.
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CHIANG MAI, Dec 11 (TerraViva/IPS Asia-Pacific) - Powerful neighbour. A rising power. Old friend. Big, secretive investor. Big boy of the region.
SYDNEY, Oct 3 (IPS Asia-Pacific) – Over the last decade or so, China’s deft use of soft power has seen South-east Asian neighbours’ view of it change from a looming threat to a largely friendly, if still imposing, giant to the north.
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BANGKOK - Do media organisations in the Mekong Region think that gender sensitivity, including giving voices to women, is part of doing better stories? How do they define it within the context of their societies and how do they report on different genders and sexuality? Do they include the use of gender-friendly language in their stylebooks and training programmes? How much is using a gender lens a news habit?
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