Report: Mining pollutes tiger reserve

Michael Casey, Seattle Post Intelligencer
January 10, 2007
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Myanmar's military junta is allowing gold mines to pollute the world's largest wild tiger reserve and has promoted development that is destroying ethnic Kachin communities, a report released Wednesday alleged.
The Kachin Development Networking Group, a coalition of NGOs, also accused the government of doubling its military presence in the Hukaung Valley in northwestern Myanmar. The government signed a peace pact with the separatist Kachin Independence Organization in 1994.
As part of that expansion, the military has confiscated a third of the farmland and scores of public buildings in and around the main town of Danai, the group said.
"Local residents had high hopes that peace would foster economic development and improve living conditions," the report said. "However, under the junta's increased control, the rich resources of the (Hukaung) valley have turned out to be a curse."

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