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Developing a National Tiger Action Plan for the Unionof Myanmar

ANTONY J. LYNAM*

SAW TUN KHAING

Wildlife Conservation SocietyInternational Programs2300 Southern Boulevard, Bronx, NY USA 10460

KHIN MAUNG ZAW

Nature and Wildlife Conservation Division Forest DepartmentMinistry of ForestryWest Gyogone, Insein, Yangon, Myanmar

ABSTRACT / A century ago, tigers were considered pestsin Myanmar. Hunters claimed thousands, yet populationspersisted. In the past century, because of habitat loss andprey depletion, coupled with the recent demand for tra-ditional medicines, tiger populations have been reduced toa few hundred individuals. As a first step toward long-termplanning for tigers, and to guide efforts to increase pro-tected area coverage, the Myanmar government in 1998

initiated a project to develop a revised National TigerAction Plan. Extensive surveys confirmed tigers in only 4of 17 survey locations. Significant populations are thoughtto persist in the far North and far South of the country,where large, intact forests offer the potential for tigerrecovery. With partnerships and collaborations, tiger pop-ulations can be protected in the short term (<5 years) byexpanding protected areas and corridors, mobilizing en-forcement staff to reduce poaching of tigers and prey, andamending existing wildlife legislation in accordance withinternational laws. Over the long term (5–20 years), re-covery of Myanmar�s tiger populations will depend on in-creasing support from local people, zoning tiger areas toreduce habitat loss and disturbance, and maintainingconnectivity of existing national and transboundary forests.This article reviews the development of a new NationalTiger Action Plan for the Union of Myanmar and discussesa blueprint for conservation measures aimed at saving ti-gers from extinction.

The tiger (Panthera tigris) is declining across itsrange (Seidensticker and others 1999) because ofshrinking habitats, expanding human populations, andincreasing demand for traditional medicines and wildmeat. Despite the trends, relatively large (>10,000 km2)contiguous tracts of natural vegetation provide highpotential habitats for tigers and other large mammalsin Southeast Asia and the Himalayan foothills (Lei-mgruber and others 2003; Wikramanayake and others1998; Wikramanayake and others 2002).

Within this region, Myanmar is a priority country fortiger conservation because it includes a large propor-tion of the range and diversity of the remaining tigerhabitats (Dinerstein and others 1997). Natural forestscover one-third of the country (FAO 2004; UNEP1995), some having relatively low human impact withinthem (Sanderson and others 2002).

The potential importance of Myanmar for tigerconservation, a desire to boost coverage of protectedareas, and the lack of any systematic data on the dis-tribution and abundance of tigers and their preyprompted the Myanmar government to initiate a pro-ject to develop a national tiger conservation strategy forMyanmar. In this article, we discuss the development ofthe plan and review threats to tigers and the history ofconservation planning for the species in Myanmar. Wesummarize the current status and distribution of tigersin the country and discuss the rationale for a NationalTiger Action Plan. Finally, we propose solutions foraddressing the threats, recovering tiger populations,and guiding future tiger conservation in the country.

Threats to Tigers

Myanmar provides a wide range of habitat and dis-turbance regimes for the tiger (Dinerstein and others1997), but as in other parts of Southeast Asia, it issensitive to a number of factors: past levels of hunting,a recent burgeoning trade of tigers and tiger parts,prey depletion, habitat loss and fragmentation, andinadequate coverage and lack of effective managementin protected areas.

KEY WORDS: Tigers; Myanmar; Species recovery; Wildlife man-agement

Published online: November 29, 2005.

*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; email:

[email protected]

Environmental Management Vol. 37, No. 1, pp. 30–39 ª 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.

DOI: 10.1007/s00267-004-0273-9

Tiger hunting has a long history in Myanmar (Mil-ton and Estes 1963; Peacock 1933; Pollok and Thom1900; Sydney 1916), as it has in other parts of the range(Duckworth and Hedges 1998; Hubback and others1924; Plas 1932; Ready 1904). In the colonial period,tigers were considered pests because they interferedwith timber operations by killing elephant calves andlivestock. Until 1931, the government provided licensesand bounties for killing tigers. This led to depopula-tion on a massive scale. For example, during the 4-yearperiod from 1928 to 1932, 1,382 tigers were reportedkilled in British Burma (Prater 1940). This approxi-mates the current estimated population of tigers in allof Indochina (Jackson 1997). More recently, increasingdemand for traditional medicines (Nowell 2000), tro-phies (Martin 1997; Martin and Redford 2000), andlive tigers in Thailand and China has threatenedMyanmar�s wild tiger population. Organized huntingto supply the burgeoning trade (Rabinowitz and others1995) has led to their extirpation in some areas (Ra-binowitz 1998), with the effect of escalating prices onthe black market (Rao and others 2005).

The sale of tiger products has been banned by theConvention on the International Trade in EndangeredSpecies (CITES) since 1975, but thrives in illegal mar-kets along the Chinese border in the states of Kachinand Shan, and the Thai border in the states of Shan,Kayin, and Mon, where it is uncontrolled (Davidson1999; Martin 1997; Martin and Redford 2000). At least10,000 kg of tiger bone representing 500 to 1,000 tigerswas imported by East Asian countries between 1970and 1993 (Hemley and Mills 1999).

Tigers are obligatory predators of large mammals, sothey are sensitive to reductions in the available preybase (Karanth and Stith 1999; Seidensticker 2002). Ahundred years ago, people living in and around for-ested areas traditionally hunted wildlife for subsistenceusing poison arrows and primitive traps. With im-proved hunting technologies such as wire snares andblack powder guns, some rural people in Myanmar nowmeet their subsistence needs for wildlife and generatea surplus for sale. Hunting is a serious threat to theintegrity of most protected areas in Myanmar (Rao andothers 2002; Aung submitted), and likely occurs atsome level in all areas that support wildlife. With thedevelopment of transportation networks, wildlife hun-ted in remote areas can now be moved more efficientlyto urban markets (Robinson and others 1999). Tigervendors also offer other tiger prey species and otherwildlife prohibited by CITES (Bennett and Rao 2002;Global Witness 2003; Hill 1994; Martin and Redford2000; Rabinowitz and Khaing 1998; Rao and others2005).

Tigers are also threatened by habitat loss. In Myan-mar, the annual net deforestation rate between 1989and 2000 was 0.2% (Leimgruber and others 2003), andin some areas within the country the rate of forest lossis more severe and exceeds the global average. Internalfragmentation of habitats from the construction ofdams, roads, and pipelines, which is increasing inMyanmar, can disrupt habitats by creating barriers todispersal (Goosem 1997), thus isolating tiger popula-tions (Smith and others 1999) and leading to increasedmortality (Kerley and others 2002). Forest degradationcaused by livestock grazing, shifting and permanentcultivation, mining, permanent human settlements,and plantations is widespread (Global Witness 2003;Rao and others 2002).

For many years, Myanmar had one of the leastdeveloped protected area networks in Southeast Asia(Balmford and Long 1995). Current governmentbudget allocations for protected areas may be less thanthat recommended for effective management (Jamesand others 1999). Legislation to protect both wildlifeand their habitats (Ministry of Forestry 1994) is weakand difficult to enforce (Gutter 2001), in part becauseof low staffing and training deficiencies, so that onlyone-third of protected areas are effectively managed(Aung submitted). Land use planning and economicventures often have consequences in human commu-nities that conflict with the goals of protected areas.

Despite the threats, the tiger in Myanmar is far froma lost cause. Wildlife trade networks are organized, al-beit limited in comparison with those of neighborcountries that have superior communications andtransportation infrastructures. Prey and tiger popula-tions can be restored if they can be protected fromhunting and trade (Kenney and others 1995; Madh-usudan and Karanth 2002). Large extensive wildlandsof forest, shrubland/savanna, and grasslands (Leimgr-uber and others 2003) provide high potential habitatfor tigers. The protected area system grew from lessthan 1% of the land area in 1996 to the current level of7% (Rao and others 2002). Training programs fornature conservation and wildlife staff have been led byseveral international conservation organizations inMyanmar: the Wildlife Conservation Society, theSmithsonian Institution, and the Harrison Institute.One-third of the Nature and Wildlife ConservationDivision (NWCD) staff has received basic instruction inwildlife survey techniques, and some of these staff areactively engaged in wildlife projects. Currently, 60% ofprotected area wardens have undergone training inprotected area management methods. Staff and stu-dents of Yangon University are part of an ongoingprogram of field-based research. Others have attended

Tiger Conservation Planning in Myanmar 31

international meetings and received training at uni-versities in the United States and the United Kingdom.Finally, and most importantly, the Myanmar govern-ment supports these efforts.

History of Conservation Planning for Tigers

In 1981, the Myanmar government estimated thetiger population in the country at 3,000. But evidencethat tigers were absent from many of their formerstrongholds (Milton and Estes 1963) and threatened inothers (Rabinowitz and others 1995) suggested theneed for a revised conservation assessment. On thebasis of calculated tiger densities for similar habitats inThailand (0.6–1.0 individuals per 100 km2 (Rabinowitz1993) and the assumption that half of the remainingclosed-canopy forests in the country were populated bytigers, approximately 600 to 1,000 tigers were estimatedfor the country (Myanmar Forest Department 1996).

Revising the assessment, Uga and Than (1998)considered the original population estimates to beoverestimates and suggested that the true numbersmight be in the range of 250 to 500. They consideredthat habitat models predicted large intact tiger sub-populations (Wikramanayake and others 1998), butapart from biologic exploration in parts of northernMyanmar (Rabinowitz 1998; Rabinowitz and others1995) and assessments of other forest areas by theUnited Nations Development Programme/Food andAgriculture Organization (UNDP/FAO) Nature Con-servation and National Parks Project, tiger status wasmostly unknown. Certainly, as in many parts of the ti-ger�s range, no systematic efforts had been made toestimate even the relative density of tigers. The bestinformation for many areas amounted to anecdotalreports from local people (Rabinowitz 1999). Infor-mation from systematic field surveys was identified as acritical need, both to refine priorities for conservationefforts and to help identify the location of future pro-tected areas (Uga and Than 1998).

The Myanmar government has a policy goal to in-crease the size of the protected area system to 10% ofthe country�s surface area (NWCD 1994; Rao and oth-ers 2002). Because tigers require large intact areas thatcontain year-around water and prey (Schaller 1967;Sunquist 1981), and because they inhabit a wide rangeof habitat types and disturbance conditions (Schaller1966), tigers were considered a focal species (Millerand others 1999) for indicating areas to be incorpo-rated into the system of protected areas (Uga and Than1998).

In 1997, the Myanmar government formally re-quested the assistance of the Wildlife Conservation

Society (WCS) in developing an updated tiger conser-vation strategy. The WCS has collaborated with theMyanmar Forest Department since 1994 under theauspices of a Memorandum of Understanding. In 1998,a project was initiated to determine the status of tigersacross the country, and to define a set of necessarymanagement and conservation actions to preserve ti-gers in their remaining natural habitats in Myanmar.

Steps in the Process

The project began with a training course for pro-tected area and forestry staff at Alaungdaw KathapaNational Park, a reserve historically known for its ti-gers (UNDP/FAO 1982). The course familiarizedparticipants with the conservation status of tigers andthe threats facing them in Southeast Asia and pre-dicted tiger areas (Tiger Conservation Units or TCUs;Dinerstein and others 1997) in Myanmar. In the late1990s, the status of tigers in these areas was largelyunknown, so field techniques for filling gaps inknowledge of tiger abundance and distribution (Ka-ranth 1995; Karanth and Nichols 1998) were taught.After training, the Forest Department and WCS se-lected seven participants to form a National TigerSurvey Team. The team would be responsible forconducting field surveys and educational presenta-tions across the country.

Working with WCS researchers, the team consid-ered predicted tiger areas (Dinerstein and others1997) along with existing information on tigers frompublished historical records, habitat analyses, satelliteimagery, and information from local people. Areasthat tigers historically inhabited and available infor-mation suggesting their continued presence wereidentified as priority areas for new surveys. Field sur-veys were conducted at selected sites during 1999–2002 to establish whether tigers still inhabited theseareas or not. A database was established to archiverecords from the tiger field surveys and to serve as afuture reference. Meetings were held periodically toupdate Myanmar government officials on the progressof the surveys. The surveys confirmed tigers for lessthan one-fourth of the predicted sites, suggesting awidespread decline in their range within the country.Areas in the North (Hukaung Valley, Upper Chin-dwin, Htamanthi) and South (Tenasserim Hills; Fig-ure 1) probably support most of Myanmar�sremaining tigers, and are priority areas for futureconservation actions (see next section). Drafting andproduction of a National Tiger Action Plan (NTAP)(Myanmar Forest Department, 2003) required 6 sixmonths and was completed in July 2003.

32 A. J. Lynam and others

Conservation Actions for Myanmar Tigers

In theory, with good management, tigers can re-bound to their former abundance in all parts of theirrange in Myanmar where suitable conditions exist. In

practice however, full recovery in many places is un-likely because of intractable threats such as permanenthuman settlements; roads and railway lines; plantationsof sugar cane, rubber, and oil palm; military camps,insurgents, or both, indicating availability of firearms;

Figure 1. Tiger surveylocations and status (1999–2002) and estimated tigerdistribution in Myanmar.


permanent cultivation; and extraction of timber spe-cies such as teak (Rao and others 2002). The NTAP(Myanmar Forest Department, 2003) will serve as aguide to the recovery of tiger populations in key partsof the national range where they currently persist, andto restoration of populations in areas where they havebeen lost and where there is a reasonable probability ofsuccessful recovery. The plan was accepted by theMyanmar government and currently is being imple-mented by the Forest Department at the direction ofthe Minister of Forestry. We review the plan and discusswhat will be necessary to implement each of its nineelements. Where appropriate, we refer to examples ofsuccesses and failures from other tiger range countries.

Suppress All Killing of Tigers and the Illegal Trade inTiger Products

In any of the range countries, this is a primarychallenge for tiger managers due to the high com-mercial value of tigers and persecution by owners oflivestock. A number of steps will be necessary to arrestthe killing of tigers in Myanmar. First, the existingProtection of Wildlife and Protected Areas Law shouldbe amended to enable implementation of CITES), towhich Myanmar signed on in 1997. Putting more biteinto the law would include imposing a fine structurefor offenders commensurate with the commercial va-lue of tigers. Second, accelerated wildlife awarenesstraining for local officials will be necessary, and gov-ernment staff in tiger areas should be recruited toparticipate in tiger conservation. Third, a nationalwildlife enforcement and investigations unit must bedeveloped to suppress trade, trafficking, illegal killingand capture, habitat destruction, and other wildlifecrimes, and staff must be recruited to join the unit.Successful initiatives, such as Indonesia�s WildlifeCrimes Unit (Lee and others 2005) could serve as amodel. Fourth, incidences of livestock predation bylarge cats are rarely reported in Myanmar, but probablyamount to a few cases each year. Because of this, itwould be relatively inexpensive to offer the affectedfarmers some kind of compensation for their losses.Several tiger range states (e.g., Russia, Malaysia, India)have explored using compensation and other strategiesto reduce animosity among locals who might retaliateby killing tigers.

Reduce Killing of Tiger Prey Species andAssociated Illegal Trade

Reduction in the availability of large ungulate preyis an important causal factor in the local extinction oftiger populations (Karanth and Stith 1999). Although

evidence of regulated hunting that leads to sustainableharvests of tropical wildlife is equivocal (Robinson andBennett 2000), studies in India have demonstrated thatlarge mammal populations increase under manage-ment regimes that emphasize active protection fromhunting (Madhusudhan and Karanth 2002). Ongoingprotection programs in Cambodia (Lynam 2004) andThailand (A.J. Lynam, personal observations) suggestsimilar results for primates, large birds, and medium-large mammals.

As in many other parts of Southeast Asia, protectedareas in Myanmar generally suffer from a low staffingand enforcement infrastructure (e.g., guard posts,vehicles) relative to their size. Although hunting inthese reserves is prohibited by law, elevated levels ofprotection will be needed to maintain tiger prey pop-ulations. For example, to match staffing levels found insome of the more effective tropical parks (3 staff/100km2; Bruner and others 2001), 200 protection staffwould be needed in the 6,450-km2 core area of the newHukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. However, because ofbudget limitations and a lack of skilled labor, only one-third of this number could be realistically deployed,but would provide at least a deterrent against poach-ing. Forestry staff should be empowered to enforcewildlife laws outside protected areas, where manyimportant wildlife populations lie. Conservationawareness lectures and stiff penalties discouragepoaching and transport of illegal wildlife in Cambodia(M. Soriyun, personal communication) and are alsoneeded to deter wildlife offenders in Myanmar.

The Ministry of Forestry should amend domesticlegislation to enable CITES implementation, and alsoto upgrade the national protection status for largeungulates that are potential tiger prey species, such asAsiatic buffalo (Bubalis bubalis), hog deer (Axis porci-nus), red muntjac (Muntiacus muntjak). Restrictionsshould be imposed on commercial farming of otherungulate species because the farms may become con-duits for illegal trafficking of wild animals from na-tional forests.

Improve Forestry Management to Stop Further Lossof Tiger Habitat and Restore Degraded Habitat

Some important tiger areas lie in active forest har-vest zones (e.g., the Tenasserim Hills), which includeparts of Kayin (Karen), Mon, and Tanintharyi Divi-sions. Traditional methods of harvest, which involve 30-year cutting cycles and the use of elephants for removalof logs, reduces environmental damage, as comparedwith other extraction methods, and should be appliedin all forest concessions in accordance with nationalregulations. Commercial logging opens up tropical


forests, making wildlife populations inside them sus-ceptible to hunting, which then is notoriously difficultto control (Robinson and others 1999). Hunting mustbe banned in forest harvest areas in Myanmar. Coop-erative programs involving conservation nongovern-ment organizations and logging companies in Malaysiaand Cambodia have helped to reduce hunting anddestructive logging practices (Gumal and Chin 2003;Lynam 2004). In Myanmar, this might be achieved byengaging the Myanmar Timber Enterprise in conser-vation planning. Conservation awareness training forforest harvest staff would be a part of such programs.

Improve Forestry Management to ReduceIntrusions of People Into Tiger Habitats andImprove Planning to Avoid Development in CriticalTiger Areas

Perhaps the most challenging aspect of tiger con-servation will involve reclaiming plantations andrevoking mining licenses in key tiger areas. For exam-ple, in the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, more than9,000 people occupy lands around five major goldmines (Myanmar Forest Department, unpublisheddata). Thousands of hectares of natural vegetationaround these mines have been removed or degraded,thus reducing available habitats for tigers. The minesshould be closed and vegetation rehabilitation shouldbe commenced, but realistically, this will take years toaccomplish. Closing the mines will mean closing mar-kets for wild meat (e.g., sambar, wild boar, gaur, por-cupine), which are supplied by hunters who poach inand around the mines (Rabinowitz 2004).

In the short term and as part of its policy, the ForestDepartment will create buffer zones inside tiger re-serves (e.g., Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve, HtamanthiWildlife Sanctuary) to allow rights and privileges forlocal people to extract certain resources such as rattan,bamboo, and other nontimber forest products, but notto hunt. Additional areas in which no extraction is al-lowed (i.e., Strict Conservation Zones) should be de-fined and enforced by ranger patrols. Proactiveseparation of tigers from people in this way may help toreduce conflicts that result in the loss of tigers(Madhusudan and Karanth 2002; Nyhus and Tilson2004). Local people will need to accept restrictions onaccess to tiger areas. To encourage acceptance, a tigereducation curriculum already tested in India andMalaysia (Naiman 2002) is currently being adapted foruse in Myanmar.

Tiger survival can be negatively affected in land-scapes altered by roads (Kerley and others 2002). Theconstruction of new public roads through Myanmarforest reserves that support tigers should be avoided

where possible. Existing logging roads should beclosed or access on them restricted. This will be espe-cially challenging in Tanintharyi Division, whereongoing projects will expand the highway network by1,000 km in the next few years, with inevitable loss andsubdivision of habitat. A balance needs to be foundbetween the desire for national development throughexpansion of tourism, transportation infrastructure,and plantations on the one hand and tiger conserva-tion on the other.

Establish Protected Areas, Ecological Corridors,and Priority Management Areas to Protect WildTigers and Their Habitat

To ensure even a partial probability of tiger persis-tence in the long term, populations numbering severalhundred tigers would need to be maintained (Reedand others 2003). On the basis of known ranging pat-terns (Smith and others 1987), this number of animalswould require thousands of square kilometers of hab-itat. Only in recent years have areas been incorporatedfor the purpose of protecting entire landscapes forwildlife Myanmar (Rao and others 2002). Existingsmaller protected areas with tigers should be enlargedto allow for expansion of populations. There has beengood progress in this area, for example, with theenlargement of the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reservefrom 6,450 to 21,802 km2 to create the world�s largesttiger reserve (Rabinowitz 2004). Together with theadjacent Bumphabum and Hponkanrazi WildlifeSanctuaries and Hkakaborazi National Park, theNorthern Forest Complex protects a landscape the sizeof Belgium (>30,000 km2). Forest reserves (12,000km2) in the Tenasserim Hills represent excellentopportunities for expansion of the protected area sys-tem in southern Myanmar (Salter 1994). New pro-tected areas, Tanintharyi National Park (2,590 km2)and Lenya Wildlife Sanctuary (1,766 km2), alreadyincorporate some of these tiger habitats. The proposedTanintharyi Nature Reserve will add a further 1,700km2. Management plans are required for all protectedareas, but the plans for areas that include tigers mustspecify local solutions for managing tiger populations,such as restrictions on human use (see preceding sec-tion).

Improve International Cooperation and EstablishTransboundary Protected Areas to MaintainConnectivity of Tiger Habitat Across InternationalBoundaries

Myanmar includes the most extensive wildlands forlarge mammals in Asia (Leimgruber and others 2003),but cross-border links give them even greater potential.


The most important links are with forests in Thailandand India. Forest reserves and protected areas in theTenasserim Hills form a corridor linking important ti-ger habitats in Thailand�s western and Kaeng KrachanForest complexes, and together comprise a 39,000-km2

transboundary complex. Similarly, the Northern ForestComplex and adjacent protected forests in northeast-ern India amount to some 36,000 km2 of protectedlands. Ideally, antipoaching patrols, cross-border trademonitoring, and tiger surveys would be coordinatedacross borders. In reality, because of vastly differentland use practices and forest management policies,security, staffing, and access issues, the best that can behoped for is a regular exchange of information on is-sues concerning transborder tiger populations (e.g.,cross-border trade) among the relevant agencies.Workshops should be held with local officials to gatherrelevant information on these issues, to increaseawareness of tigers, and to facilitate cooperation tosuppress threats to tigers. Spatially explicit databasesbased on updated tiger conservation units (Dinersteinand others 1997) that cover the transboundary areaswill be of use in future conservation planning.

Monitor the Status of Tiger and Prey Populations toAssess the Effectiveness of Conservation Effortsand Provide Guidance for Improvement

The management of tiger populations has alreadybegun in the Northern Forest Complex as part of newprotected area initiatives. Preliminary evidence fromfield surveys in the Hukaung Valley suggests that tigerscan be found widely across available habitat (WCS,unpublished data), but because conservation resourcesare limited, management of tigers will focus on keyhabitats and core areas. Future activities will involveestimation and monitoring of tiger and prey popula-tions, as well as creation of spatially explicit databasesto monitor trends in human use. In the TenasserimHills, information on tigers is limited, so a first prioritywill be to establish tiger occupancy patterns in theTanintharyi National Park, the Lenya River NationalPark, and the proposed Tanintharyi Nature Reserve.Field monitoring of tiger and prey should be evaluatedusing standardized techniques (Karanth and Nichols2002), and forest staff should be trained in thesetechniques, which involve the use of camera traps andline-transect surveys.

Improve Public Awareness of the Importance ofTiger Conservation to Increase Support From LocalPeople

Wildlife education programs are needed to dis-courage hunting by local people in key tiger areas.

Respected people with local knowledge about wildlifeshould be recruited to run such programs, and toparticipate in conservation activities and foster goodrelations with tiger conservation staff. This has alreadybegun in the Hukaung Valley, with Lisu and Nagahunters hired as rangers, guides, and field assistants.Public awareness could be increased if tiger televisiondocumentaries available on international cable televi-sion channels were made available on local Myanmartelevision.

Define Roles and Responsibilities of PersonnelResponsible for Tiger Conservation

Wardens of reserves where tigers exist need specialtraining to help them manage conservation resourcesfor tigers more effectively. Some of these wardensshould visit model wildlife reserves in India (e.g.,Nagarahole and Badhra) to observe day-to-day opera-tions and bring back skills and ideas to apply inMyanmar reserves. Beyond this, a training curriculumshould be developed to provide annual in-servicecourses in leadership skills, decision making, planning,protection, use of information and technology, andpersonnel management in accordance with ASEANguidelines (Appleton and others 2003). This wouldbuild upon the experience that most wardens havereceived through training programs with internationalconservation nongovernmental organizations. Finally,roles for junior staff in key tiger reserves should beclearly defined by their wardens in accordance withNature and Wildlife Conservation Division standards.

Challenges for Implementation

Implementing the nine-point NTAP will necessitatetackling the full range of factors that threaten the sur-vival of Myanmar�s wild tigers. The scope of the challengemakes this a complicated and daunting task at every le-vel. Many of the issues are cross-sectoral, and they willrequire the exploration of approaches that do not fallwithin the tradition of wildlife management in Asia. Al-though we have specified what should be done, the waysand means remain to be determined for many of theactions. Fortunately, interest and concern about Myan-mar�s conservation and developmental issues areincreasing, and the new leadership of the Ministry ofForestry is strongly committed to the conservation cause.

Already, implementation of the plan is progressing,with the setting aside of large wildland areas for tigersand other wildlife. However, the challenges to main-tain and manage these areas are staggering, and newinnovative mechanisms of financial support (e.g.,through private donors) must be explored and


implemented to compensate staff and new programs.Training staff to understand and enforce the new rulesand regulations is the first step to building professionalcapacity, but managers and decision makers mustultimately address the incentives necessary to inducecompetent parks personnel to work under arduous anddangerous living conditions. Likewise, educating localpeople to understand and respect the new restrictionsmust be followed by viable alternatives of support.

At the same time, incentives for cooperation ofprotected area staff and legal residents inside tiger re-serves with forest protection staff and local officialsbased outside these areas will be needed to reduce thekilling of large ungulates that enter the domestic tradein wild meat, hides, traditional medicines, and tro-phies. The dependencies of people involved in illegalwildlife trade must be reduced. In some areas wherethe price of wild meat is less than that of domesticanimals, small micro-loans and grants for ecofriendlybusiness ventures and community development ven-tures will be needed to increase production of livestockand decrease the harvest of wild animal populations.The livestock then will need to be managed so they donot become prey for tigers!

Admittedly, unilateral actions taken by the Myanmargovernment may be insufficient to save tigers becauseof factors outside its control. For example, efforts tostop the killing and trade of tigers might reduce thesupply end of the market, but if demand from neigh-boring countries is not addressed, some level of tradewould persist. Myanmar will need to enlist support andcooperation from the governments of Thailand andChina in order to reduce trade and trafficking.Deforestation is occurring at relatively high rates, but itis concentrated in border areas and involves neighborcountries (Global Witness 2003; Rao and others 2002).Stopping the loss of tiger habitat in transborder areasand stemming cross-border trade will be among thebiggest challenges for implementation.

The NTAP was initiated in 2003, and an ambitious 5-year schedule was adopted (Myanmar Forest Depart-ment 2003) to stabilize tigers, prey, and habitat, whichare ‘‘measurable currencies’’ for tiger conservation(Ginsberg 2001). Given complex politics and otheruncertainties, it may take 10 to 15 years to realize allthe targets. Efforts to save tigers in Myanmar are part ofa global endeavor to recover the species across itsrange, one that is supported by a number of donoragencies and implemented by range state governmentswith technical support from nongovernment conser-vation organizations. As the human footprint expandsand wilderness decreases (Sanderson and others 2002),planning and implementation of conservation agendas

aimed at securing the future of the tiger must be rep-licated in earnest across its range.

AcknowledgmentsA National Tiger Action Plan for the Union of

Myanmar was made possible by the Minister of ForestryDirector-Generals U Soe Tint, U Than Shwe, U KyawTint, U Shwe Kyaw, and U Soe Win Hlaing; formerNWCD Director U Uga; territorial staff of the ForestDepartment; the Local commander of TanintharyiDivision; and U Tun Paw Oo, Director of the Tan-intharyi Forest Department. U Aung Than wrote thefirst tiger action plan, which served as a foundation forthe current plan. We also thank staff of the WildlifeConservation Society—Myanmar Program and the Na-tional Tiger Survey Team including U Than Myint, USaw Htoo Tha Po, U Kyaw Thin Latt, U Myint Aung, UMyint Maung, U Tin Mya Soe, U Htay Win, U SeinAung Min, U Thein Lwin, U Khin Maung Htay, U TunTun Lwin, U Moe Myint Aung, U Zaw Naing Tun, andDaw Myint Myint Oo, for assistance in carrying out allaspects of the field program. Financial support for thedevelopment and implementation of the Plan hascome from Save the Tiger Fund, a collaboration be-tween the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation andExxonMobil, US Fish and Wildlife Service, private do-nors, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Finally, wethank Alan Rabinowitz for initiating tiger conservationwork in Myanmar and helping to inspire the creationof some important protected areas. William Duck-worth, Joshua Ginsberg, Alan Rabinowitz, Madhu Rao,John Seidensticker, and Christen Wemmer providedcomments on earlier drafts, which greatly improvedthe final manuscript.

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