Geez, as if anyone needed any further reason to hate Burma. Story here. Man, what is it with Burma anyway? They just never stop. Asshats.
Exerpt: **"[Government officials] trumpeted the creation of the world’s largest tiger reserve in the valley in Kachin State, located in the northernmost part of the country.
"The declaration was hailed by environmentalists around the world as a landmark in conserving the only 3,200 wild tigers left by protecting an area the size of Vermont.
“But less than a month later, a report and video released by a network of civil society groups and development organizations in Kachin State shows that one of Myanmar’s most powerful tycoons has been, and still is, clear-cutting forests across the tiger reserve to put in sugar and tapioca plantations and to plant jatropha for biofuel.”**
This is awful news, I mean everbody loves the big houses, the mint juleps, and the fancy balls, but the exploitation of all those people out in the fields picking tapioca is just horrible.
On a serious not though, the article does point out:
**"People as well as tigers are being displaced. The KDNG report documents the struggles of indigenous farmers being forcibly relocated to make way for the plantations. There are seven villages in the middle project area with a total estimated population of 5,000. The populations come from several different subgroups of the Kachin ethnicity.
“‘They threatened the local residents and took away their farms without negotiating with the people. They came at night time and bulldozed away our farmlands. They confiscated cemeteries and burned farmhouses. They confiscated lands belonging to religious organizations,’ the farmers wrote in a joint letter to Hpakant Township Peace and Development Council in June 2009.”**
I know, too, there’s a real fear in Thailand that too many farmers here converting to biofuel crops will threaten a food shortage.