US embassy cable - 05RANGOON143

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 RANGOON 000143 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV, OES, DRL 
BANGKOK FOR REO 
USPACOM FOR FPA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/03/2015 
TAGS: SENV, ECON, PGOV, BM, NGO, Economy 
SUBJECT: CONSERVATION, ECO-TOURISM GET FOOTHOLD IN SOUTHERN 
CHIN STATE 
 
REF: RANGOON 87 
 
Classified By: COM Carmen Martinez for Reasons 1.4 (B,D) 
 
1. (SBU) Summary: Local NGOs have created small-scale but 
real success stories in a remote corner of Burma's southern 
Chin State.  Conservation and eco-tourism projects are 
helping to slow the deterioration of the under-funded, 
decade-old, Natmataung National Park.  While the successes 
are encouraging, particularly as they are being carried out 
by elements of Burma's practically non-existent independent 
civil society, there is much work to be done before they can 
be thought of as sustainable.  End summary. 
 
Natmataung: A National Park on Paper 
 
2. (SBU) In 1994 the GOB gazetted as a national park a 279 
square mile, 178,560 acre, area surrounding 10,000 foot Mt. 
Victoria (Burma's third-highest mountain, now called 
Natmataung) in southern Chin State.  This mountainous area of 
deciduous and evergreen forests, in one of Burma's most 
remote and undeveloped regions, is only 100 miles west of 
Bagan -- Burma's ancient royal capital and leading tourist 
site -- but is poorly connected by rutted and windy dirt 
roads.  For many years, Natmataung National Park was 
essentially a "paper park," protected in theory but with 
little funding going to support the salaries and work of the 
32 Forest Department staff on site.  Primary challenges to 
protection were the local Chin people's traditional shifting 
cultivation agricultural practices, poaching of wild animals 
(the Chins are very avid hunters), and of wild orchids (for 
equally avid Japanese and Chinese collectors). 
 
3. (SBU) Natmataung NP is in the middle of three townships 
(Kanpalet, Mindat, and Matupi) and 32 villages remain inside 
the park.  As the population in these towns and villages has 
grown, the park's designated "buffer zone" has been consumed 
and pressure on the park itself has increased.  No new 
government resources were forthcoming to deal with this 
growing problem.  In fact, park officials told us -- during 
our January 25-28 visit to the park -- that their annual 
budget had been cut in the last couple of years to about 
$10,000.  However, in the past couple of years, two 
apparently positive trends have emerged: the opening of the 
park to eco-tourism, and expansion into the area of a 
conservation NGO. 
 
Eco-Tourism: Done Right So Far 
 
4. (SBU) In 2003, relatives of the park warden, an ethnic 
Chin from Mindat and long-time Forest Department veteran who 
has been overseeing the park since its inception, opened a 
nine-room "eco-lodge."  This year a local man, who is running 
a bird-watching travel agency in Rangoon, is opening his own 
small lodge.  In both cases, the owners are seeking 
adventurous foreigners willing to travel a bit rough (six 
hours by car from Bagan) to enjoy pristine hiking and 
world-class bird watching.  The park has nearly 300 species 
of birds, including one globally endangered species that is 
found only in Natmataung.  Special permission is required 
from the Ministry of Defense for foreigners to go to southern 
Chin State.  However, these days this permission is usually 
granted for tourists. 
 
5. (SBU) Thus far the tourist trade has been slow but steady. 
 The park is only accessible three or four months a year (due 
to poor road conditions in the rainy season and months 
immediately thereafter), and the two hoteliers have not 
advertised much.  They bemoaned, however, the rumor that a 
crony of the regime (and monopoly organizer of tourist visits 
to the Naga New Years festival, reftel) has been given 
permission to build a large resort hotel in Natmataung. 
According to a conservation NGO and park staff, such 
construction would damage efforts to manage tourism carefully 
to limit its impact on the environment. 
 
A Success Story for Local NGO 
 
6. (SBU) The one conservation NGO currently active in the 
Kanpalet and Mindat portions of the Park is a newly formed 
local NGO called BANCA.  It's run by a retired senior Forest 
Department official.  Post has sent the General Secretary of 
this NGO as an International Visitor to study NGO management 
in the United States.  Though still rough around the edges, 
this NGO has shown a surprising ability to remain 
independent, liaise effectively with larger international 
conservation NGOs, and initiate and monitor small but 
comprehensive programs.  CARE also has small projects in the 
Mindat area, and is opening an office in Kanpalet.  However, 
its work is focused on health and community development, not 
conservation. 
 
7. (SBU) In Natmataung, BANCA is educating local villagers 
about conservation, supporting environmentally sound income 
generation projects, and enhancing law enforcement.  With 
funding from international NGO Birdlife International, since 
October 2004 BANCA has been working with park staff in two 
villages building nurseries (of high-value but 
environmentally sound crops) and gravity-fed water systems 
for income generation and educating about alternative farming 
techniques.  The local churches (the majority of Chins are 
Christian) are also cooperating in getting out the 
conservation message.  BANCA is also promoting cultivation of 
currently wild-growing crops that have particularly good 
export potential.  From the law enforcement angle, BANCA 
innovated a program of providing supplementary rice rations 
to all villagers in exchange for community participation 
(alongside park rangers) in policing their part of the park. 
 
8. (SBU) In October 2004, BANCA said that it would assess the 
results of this novel program after three months and would 
continue it for the remaining three months of the Birdlife 
grant only if it showed success.  We accompanied BANCA staff 
on its three-month assessment trip and found results to be 
very encouraging.  The water systems and nurseries were 
complete and working well and logs recording law enforcement 
activity detailed many more interventions than before the 
program started.  One village chief told us local people were 
much more responsive to appeals and admonishments from their 
fellow villagers than from uniformed rangers from other parts 
of Chin State (or Burma). 
 
Comment: Good Signs, But Work Remains 
 
9. (C) Though only on a very small scale thus far, the 
eco-tourism and conservation work in Natmataung is 
encouraging.  The most notable aspect, in a country with 
almost no independent civil society, is that it is all being 
done by local, independent non-governmental groups.  No one 
had any reports of interference or bullying from local 
officials.  Cooperation between the NGOs and park staff is 
very close, with no sign that the Forest Department is trying 
to set the agenda for development.  Indeed in its areas of 
work, BANCA (with the cooperation of Park officials) is 
actively, though surreptitiously, trying to counter a 
campaign by the local arms of the State Peace and Development 
Council (the USDA and local PDC offices) to promote tea 
plantations -- because drying tea requires much firewood. 
 
10. (SBU) (Comment, cont.) There is much work to be done, 
though, before any of this can be considered sustainable. 
First, funding is in short supply.  There is no contingency 
when the Birdlife grant runs out in April, and BANCA has 
little experience with creative fundraising -- especially 
inside Burma where notions of individual or corporate 
philanthropy are limited.  Second, inexperience may keep the 
local NGO groups from optimizing the development of the 
region.  For instance, there has been no effort to 
incorporate a cultural aspect into the eco-tourism packages. 
Also, the local groups now at work do not have the knowledge 
to give badly needed lessons on market economics to local 
villagers who traditionally do not sell their surpluses. 
Finally, the pernicious hand of the GOB is always lurking. 
Should the GOB decide to dominate BANCA, or take over from 
local operators of the eco- and cultural-tourism of this 
region (as it has in the Naga hills and the islands of the 
Myeik Archipelago), it could easily destroy the tentative 
successes that a few dedicated locals have achieved.  End 
comment. 
Martinez