Valley of Darkness, a new report by undercover local researchers, exposes how Burma’s military junta is promoting extensive gold-mining in the Hugawng Valley Tiger Reserve in northern Kachin State, devastating not only the environment but also local communities.
The junta has expanded control of the valley, confiscating farmlands and homes to accommodate its military infrastructure, and selling off vast tracts as gold-mining concessions. The valley’s forests and waterways are now being ravaged by over 100 hydraulic and pit mines using mechanized pumps and dredges and dumping mercury-contaminated tailings. Thousands of desperate migrants from all over Burma are working in squalid mining communities throughout the once pristine valley, where drug addiction and HIV/AIDS have become rampant.
“Under the regime’s increased control, the rich resources of Hugawng valley have turned out to be a curse.” said Tsa Ji, one of the authors of the report. “Only the junta and a handful of businessmen are benefiting from the gold while the local people suffer the consequences.”
The US-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which jointly established the Hugawng Valley Tiger Reserve, is claiming that Burma’s junta has almost completely closed down the gold-mining industry in the valley. This report proves otherwise.
“We want the world to know that both tigers and people in the Hugawng valley are being endangered by Burma’s military regime,” said Tsa Ji.
This report is a must read for anyone who's interested in Kachin State, or the social impacts of mining operations. It's also a must read if you've read the book "Beyond the Last Village" by Alan Rabinowitz, which chronicles his efforts to explore Kachin State and establish the nature preserve that encompasses the Hugawng Valley. In the off chance you need convincing of just how dishonest the military government apparatus of Burma is, and just how healthy a dose of scepticism you should hold when considering the 'official' line of anything relating to the government, then read up on Alan Rabinowitz and the Wildlife Conservation Society's press on the Hugawng Valley, either before or after reading this report.
In the articles linked to below, the Hugawng Valley is portrayed as a vast, uninhabitable area - a preserved primordial forest of sorts, where wildlife could flourish without the annoyance of human settlement. In the NPR article introducing an interview with Rabinowitz, the valley is referred to as "mostly inhospitable to humans". In another interview, Rabinowitz says, “It’s a horrendous area, which is why wildlife thrives,”...“It’s horrible for malaria, its horrible for typhus, snakes, everything. That’s why tigers do great. The valley is 7,000 to 8,000 square miles, with about 5,000 to 6,000 square miles of beautiful, intact forest.". The only people mentioned are the hunters and gold miners who have ostensibly moved into the area since the government cleared the Ledo road. In the Vally of Darkness, however, the Kachin researchers describe the valley thusly:
Within Kachin State, Hugawng valley forms the township of Danai which is further divided into 17 village tracts with a total of 60 villages..... Because of the fertile alluvial soils on the banks of the Danai River and its streamlets, Hugawng valley has vast areas of arable land for different kinds of crops. The local people grow wet paddy in lowland areas, practice rotational agriculture in upland areas, and raise domestic animals. They subsist by hunting, fishing, and collecting fruits and forest products from the jungle. People also mine gold, quartz, platinum, amber and rubies. Some engage in logging.
I read Rabinowitz's book, Beyond the Last Village, just a couple months ago. In the chapter where he enters the Hugawng valley, there is little to no mention of any Kachin inhabitants. He mentions the Naga they encountered as they walked along the Ledo road, and portrays their existence as somewhat haphazard, with sad huts limited to the vicinity of the road, and he describes the trouble they had when their presumably hired Naga porters flee with the expedition teams' supplies in the middle of the night - a result of their inherent fear of the accompanying Burmese soldiers. Throughout the book, Rabinowitz's sense of irony seemed in short supply. It would be interesting to know if his portrayal of the valley was a product of his own bias as a wildlife biologist, or if his experience and knowledge was more closely controlled by the junta than he'd be willing to admit.
The National Geographic article describes the momentus occasion of a meeting that was held to discuss the preservation of the valley, in which the following groups are in attendance: "...Naga, Lisu, Shan, and gun-toting Kachin Independence Army—jungle-dwelling insurgent groups, all wary of each other. Here, too, with resentments of their own, were local police and federal forestry officers from the military junta that rules the country once known as Burma." While the meeting is noted as an acheivement in getting all groups to agree to cooperate in protecting the wildlife, it's easy for the reader to overlook one key point - there were no high level regional commanders nor Ministry of Mines officials involved in this process. Kachin researchers revealed that these are the people who really control the area of the gold mines, so however well-intentioned the forestry and police officials who Rabinowitz has met are - they have very little or no influence over how things actually run.
The irony of his final statement in an interview dated October 28, 2006, is almost too much to take:
“I’m not naive -- I’ve worked 20 years in this field, in many, many countries. And there are countries I’ve walked out of, like China and Malaysia, where they just talk a good game and don’t follow anything up. And this government, so far, has followed through. Outsiders can say what they want, but I can show them the facts. Come, and I’ll show you where local people are now better off in the protected areas. They have salt, medicine, and other things where the government has staffed every protected area they’ve set up.
“The outside world needs to realize that change occurs best from economic engagement,” he says. “The human rights activists don’t want to hear this, but that’s the reality. You want to help these countries in terms of saving their resources and helping the local people, it comes from on-the-ground engagement.”
You can download a PDF version of the report "Valley of Darkness: Gold Mining and Militarization in Burma's Hugawng Valley" at www.aksyu.com
Related Articles:
January 10, 2007
Gold in the lair of the tiger: Big cats vs. big profits
October 28, 2006
Alan Rabinowitz: Saving the Tigers of South East Asia
March 15, 2004
World's Biggest Tiger Reserve (NPR Interview)
Alan Rabinowitz's Fight of His Life