Myanmar, formerly Burma, slowly began opening up to international organisations after over 50 years of civil conflict and has great potential for tiger recovery. The National Tiger Action Plan highlights two priority areas for the conservation of the species, the Hukaung Valley in the north and the Tanintharyi division in the south. ITHCP is investing in both, together with the Dawna-Karen Hills which is not officially a TCL by lack of data but which is seen as having the potential for being classified as such.
In the north, Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is looking at creating a network of corridors to allow dispersion of tigers across the 35000 km2 wide transboundary landscape between Htamanti and Hukaung Valley Wildlife Sanctuaries, with relatively few tigers and Kaziranga National Park in India, a World Heritage site which holds one of the highest tiger densities of the world.
In the south, Fauna & Flora International (FFI) works in the Tanintharyi Landscape to establish two new protected areas in an area with great scope for tiger recovery as the area borders a large contiguous tiger habitat with growing populations, in neighbouring Thailand.
Since April 2017 another project has been added to the portfolio. Coordinated by Wildlife Asia, this project is carried out in Karen state, in the Dawna-Karen Hills (6,106 km2) by Karen indigenous groups (Karen Wildlife Conservation Initiative (KWCI) in partnership with the Karen Forestry Department and local organisation KESAN). This area extends the existing Tenasserim Tiger Conservation Landscape and provides critical linkage for tiger movement from the Western Forest Complex in Thailand, through to protected and unprotected tiger habitat in Myanmar. The project is looking at training effective anti-poaching Wildlife Protection Units, building capacity of the Karen Forest Department and local NGOs, acquiring baseline data on tiger populations and working with local communities on alternative livelihoods.
