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Information Sheet N0.A-0515( I )



                                      Information   Sheet

                     N0.A-0515( I )                     22nd July 1998

                   Air Mandalay to Launch New Domestic Route

		Air Mandalay will launch its new Yangon-Heho-Tachilek-Kentung-Heho-Yangon
domestic route for the convenience of travellers in remote areas.  The airline
will operate the new route twice a week (Mondays and Thursdays) beginning 27
July.

OFFICE CALLS IN YANGON ON 21 JULY
		Minister for Communications, Posts and Telegraphs received Director Mr Ghil
J Levi and party of Karni-Levi & Hocheberg of Israel at his office.
		
		An article entitled " Idealogues who have all the answers"  by John G
Robinson, Ph.D. Vice President for International Conservation, WCS and Mr.
Joshua R. Ginsberg, Ph.D. Director, WCS Asia Program is presented for your
reading pleasure.

Idealogues Who Have All The Answers

Recently, the Guardian and Observer newspapers have printed two articles
critical of conservationists in general, and the Wildlife Conservation Society
(WCS) in particular. The first originally appearing in the Observer of 23
March, and subsequently reprinted in the Guardian Weekly, written by Levy,
Scott-Clark and Herrison, was so full of errors and inaccuracies that we
dismissed it out of hand. The second, written by George Monbiot and published
in the Guardian on August 6, however was even more inflammatory, and prompted
us to reply.

Both of these articles portray conservationists as narrow-minded zealots ?
promoting an outmoded, repressive approach to natural resource conservation in
which innocent indigenous people are excluded from pristine wildlife-rich
lands which are their birthright. After presenting their view of conservation,
which they link to authoritative governments, Levy and his colleagues vilify
the actions of SLORC, the military government in Myanmar and rendering
responsible, through guilt by association, all conservationists working in
that country. The Monbiot article, in contrast, states directly that
conservationists in Laos are in cahoots with big business, natural resource
exploiters, and international finance, in a consortium eager to build dams.

The arguments are based on both a false assumption ? that conservation can
only be accomplished by creating and excluding people from parks and protected
areas - and a false premise ? that indigenous peoples are ? ecological noble
savages ? living in harmony with nature. Monbiot particularly paints an Eden-
like vision of indigenous peoples on the Nakai Plateau- in Laos. The reality
is more complex, and less benign.

Cultures are  diverse and have  different impacts on  the environment. Even in
a does not small are like the Nakai plateau in Laos, there is a wide diversity
of ethnic groups: some practice sedentary, rotational Swidden, which is more
sustainable, others practice nomadic, pioneering swidden, which has turned
tropical forest into sterile Imperata grasslands in many areas. Most groups
hunt, and many wildlife  species have been decimated throughout the country
and some locally extirpated. People, indigenous or otherwise, often have a
negative impact on wild species.

However, this does not pose an  insoluble dichotomy, and does not pit
conservationists against local people. While it is often difficult to
reconcile the immediate needs of local peoples and the wild species inhabiting
the same locale, local peoples increasingly recognize the need to conserve ?
otherwise, as their population grow and as people get more involved in the
market economy, there is less rattan, less wildlife, poorer soils  an  fewer
fish.  And conservationists in general, and WCS in particular, while they seek
to act as representatives for those,; who have no voices - the wild animals
and plants that share the world with us ? recognize, and have recognized for
decades, that more often that not , involving local peoples in conservation is
essential if efforts are to succeed.. 

Unfortunately, in their attempt to promote social justice for the rural
impoverished and disenfranchised in Myanmar and Laos, both articles portray
conservationists as  the enemy. The argument, presumably chosen to shock your
readers, is a considerable intellectual stretch, both articles quickly lose
their objective grasp, and descend in innuendo, hearsay, and clear falsehoods.

The article on the situation in Myanmar is fairly easy to dismiss, as it
implicates conservationists only by association. WCS and our sister
institutions, do not support or condone human rights abuses, in Myanmar or in
any other-country. We believe our work in Myanmar promotes the human rights of
citizens by conserving the natural resources on which many, if not most, of
the populace depend. Our conservation project in Burma work together with
local communities. WCS has not been involved in? any project in the
Myinmoletkat Nature Reserve.


Clearly, conservation must proceed in partnership with the local  people, not
in spite of them. It is the policy of WCS, and our partner organizations
around the world, to promote conservation- so-that it-both protects the
natural world and allows people to be the beneficiaries of natural resources.
Achieving these twin goals is not easy, but it is a tenet of conservation that
we must try to do so. The real enemies of the environment, and of indigenous
peoples and their rights, are the idealogues who have all the answers, but
never have had the opportunity to put on a pair of boots and takes a look at
the complex reality that exists in the fields and forests.
********