Myanmar Protected Areas: Context, Current Status ... - Istituto Oikos

Fauna and Flora checklist
Many PAs have partial or complete checklists of some natural resources, due to research activities on
specific topics carried out, or because resources identification is part of the annual operational plan.
The most common checklists are those on mammals, trees and birds owned respectively by 25, 23 and
22 of PAs. Fewer PAs (9-11) possess checklists on insects, amphibians and reptiles. The PAs which do
more inventories of different biological resources are Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Sanctuary, Lampi Island
Marine National Park, Alaungdaw Kathapa National Park, Chatthin Wildlife Sanctuary, Htamanthi Wildlife
Sanctuary, Khakaborazi National Park, Panlaung-Pyadalin Cave Wildlife Sanctuary and Shwesettaw
Wildlife Sanctuary. All these sites are managed by NWCD.
3. Management
In terms of management 20 PAs have a planning document, in most cases an annual operational plan,
and park wardens have to report about its completion to headquarters at the end of every year.
Patrolling, environmental education and wildlife surveys are implemented in approximately half of
the surveyed PAs. Development actions performed by park staff include, in 23% of the visited sites,
community based natural resources management and community forestry in the surroundings areas
of the PA. Outreach programs are implemented in 30% of the PA visited, in form of collaboration and
meetings with neighbouring communities, but also in terms of education programs. In 70% of the PAs
visited, lack of budget and staff (both in numbers and quality) are mentioned as the main constraints
to the implementation of management actions. Conflicts with local communities and insurgents are
identified as main limit to management in 15% of the visited sites.
4. Staff/Resources
Over 65% of the sample has some infrastructure for management, at least the park warden office, and
staff assigned with some level of training. In most cases physical and human resources were judged
inadequate by PA authority or staff. There are 17 out of 43 PAs with no allocated staff and all are under
the governance of FD. Staff is missing in all proposed areas except Bawditataung and Natma Taung.
The number of staff allocated to remaining 26 sites ranges from a minimum of 4 for Kelatha to a
maximum of 131 for Hlawga without any correlation to the size of the PA. For instance, only 17 staff are
allocated to the largest (Hukaung Valley, 22.000 km²) and over 30 to the smallest (Lawkananda, 0,5 km2 ).
In general, PAs governed under NWCD have more infrastructure and staff, and consequently perform
more conservation and management activities than those governed by FD, where the office is in general
quite far from the PA and management actions are limited to sporadic patrolling and gap planting.
Lack of financial resources is reported as the main cause of insufficient monitoring and patrolling; staff
is not paid any travel allowance and vehicles and tools are inadequate.
5. Tourism
Tourism is permitted in some PAs, especially those that are listed among the Myanmar ecotourism sites
(Moyingyi, Popa, Shwesettaw, Inlay Lake, Alaungdaw Kathapa, Natma Taung, Khakaborazi, Hponkanrazi,
Mainmahla Kyun, Lampi Island, Hukaung Valley, Chatthin). Furthermore, religious tourism is present in
other areas such as Kyaikhtiyoe, Bumhpabum and Par Sar. Tourism facilities are available in 19 sites but
tourism statistics were not available at the park offices because they are managed under the Myanmar
Travel and Tourism. No community-based tourism activities were recorded inside or in the proximity of
protected areas except for Inlay lake, which is one of the main tourist destinations in Myanmar.
Figures for international tourism are very small for Myanmar compared to neighbouring countries but
more investments are expected in the future, with special attention to ecotourism.
6. Land use and Human activities
Land use classification consists of 10 categories according to Young (1994) namely: 1) not used 2)
conservation 3) collection 4) forestry 5) agricultural production 6) fisheries production 7) recreation 8)
mineral extraction 9) settlement 10) use restricted by security. Data confirm that agricultural production,
forestry and fisheries production are implemented in the majority of protected areas. Tourism and
recreation areas are present in 32% of the analysed PAs, mining activities are reported in 10 sites, and
security issues related to the presence of either insurgents or army compounds inside 6 sites.
Myanmar Protected Areas
7. Research
Research surveys have been implemented in 65% of sites, mainly by local universities, local NGOs
and a few international organisations (WCS, California Academy of Science, Smithsonian Institute,
Istituto Oikos). There are no clear procedures to undertake research in the PAs. Local researchers make
agreements with park wardens while international scientists are required to get security clearance from
the central FD office. Furthermore, research results are often not available at the park office.
2.3 Protected Areas Datasheets
In the following section, we report the general information provided by Forest Department and the
maps produced by project GIS experts for all 43 PAs and selected information collected by the project
on natural resources, threats, management, tourism, land use and human activities, research, about
the 30 surveyed sites. All the information retrieved during the project has been inserted in a database
available to stakeholders upon request. Such database has been created using MS Access 2007 and
comprises a Graphic User Interface to easily browse all the Protected Areas. The instructions on how
to use the Database are present in the Database itself. The maps displayed in the present publication
have been created using data retrieved from different sources such as: SRTM for the digital elevation
model (USGS 2004, Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, Global Land Cover Facility); Landsat 5 and 7 for
satellite images (NASA); the UN agency MIMU-OCHA for the administrative boundaries, towns and road
connections (Myanmar Information Management Unit, http://themimu.info/). The boundaries of the
Protected Areas have been retrieved from the Forest Department and the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Such boundaries, as well as the position of the Head Quarters and Ranger Posts, have been corrected
when necessary after the field trips in the PAs of the present project. The two resulting maps have the
objective to display the general topographic location and characteristics of each PA, and give more
detailed information on the vegetation cover from remotely sensed data. To appreciate such information
a colour scale is provided: black means generally presence of water; cyan-white means bare soils or
artificial surfaces; red, on the other side, means presence of any kind of vegetation.
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A.Bonetti