Indigenous groups in Myanmar lash out at ‘restrictive’ conservation policies
In late 2018, following a series of demonstrations and confrontations, indigenous communities primarily from the Rawang ethnic minority expelled the Myanmar Forest Department and its international partner, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), from an area known as the Hkakaborazi Landscape, amid mounting dissent over a potential UNESCO World Heritage nomination.
The 11,280–square-kilometer (4,355-square-mile) area, located in Myanmar’s northernmost Puta-O region, encompasses roughly 4,000 people who depend on hunting, foraging and shifting cultivation.
The expulsion of the Forest Department and WCS came following years of mounting grievances. The communities say that Forest Department management, under a WCS-supported national park designation, resulted in a breakdown of customary practices passed down generationally, and opened up a resource grab, while destroying local livelihoods.
Emily Fishbein
