WWF and WildAid launched ‘The Price We Pay’ campaign last month, tackling illegal wildlife trade last month in Myanmar. MI interviewed WWF to understand more on the wildlife trade within Myanmar.

WWF: Consultant Daniel and Saw Lin Htet.

Expert: Dr Nay Myo Swe, Head of Wildlife and WWF Myanmar Program.

MI to WWF: Why this campaign now?

Because currently, we faced so many challenges in Myanmar, and another pandemic, it’s not something we want to add that long list. Also the illegal wildlife trade has not gone away despite the political situation in Myanmar; rather than it has gone further underground. And, and, and also WWF recent study on online illegal wildlife trade show a dramatic escalation, particularly among certain species and we felt we had to take action on that. So this campaign is one of the various approaches we are taking.

MI to Expert: How do you end up in WWF in the first place?

Thanks, Sir. Firstly, it’s very nice to meet you again. Prior to joining WWF as a head of wildlife, in Myanmar program, I was employed by Fauna and Flora International in the Myanmar program as the Conservation Program Manager. Before that, I have a lot of conservation organisation experience and was also both a director in the Friends of Wildlife and a patron and technical advisor in the Wildlife and Ecosystem Conservation Asian Nations. That is my history before joining the WWF. I joined WWF that is the one of the wildlife focus organisation, which act mainly to protect and conserve the species, especially in Myanmar. And also, as you can see, and the campaign a lot of the wildlife related issues. So that is my main reason why I end up in the WWF.

MI to WWF: How would you ensure the widespread viewership of this video for your targeted audience?  

Yeah, we have our campaign plan and also the outreach plan which includes support from the selected key opinion leaders (KOL) and the private sector partner like viber, and also the other companies who are happy as to share the messages to reach widely into into the public. And we also hope that that campaign will resonate with the people of Myanmar and they will want to share it with their friends and their family members.

MI to Expert: How would you ensure that Myanmar people take the protection of the Endangered Species seriously?

While we, in this game, we will continue to raise awareness on the importance of protecting Myanmar natural species so that our forest, rivers and sky would not be empty. The empty forest means so empty of wildlife. We need to ensure that another pandemic is not added to the existing list of challenges in Myanmar. We are working on the partnership between private companies, civil society and also the local community.

MI to Both: These days in the in the public areas, there’s also bad things that people mentioned about Facebook, doing all the illegal activities from human trafficking to xxx videos to some other illegal things, bad things about Facebook inciting hatred, etc. So in a wildlife trade also, my opinion is the main culprit seems to be the Facebook platform, which is allowing the very brisk, very happy sale, of wildlife? So without a medium to sell, there’ll be no buyers there. If you remove Facebook out of the equation wildlife trade would have gone down significantly.? What is your response to that?

WWF: Yes, for our country, Facebook is the most popular social media platform. But on the other hand, the illegal wildlife, they always find a way to sell the product, the wildlife, if, you know, it wasn’t on Facebook, there will be other online or other offline market, facilitating sales. And the problem problem lies not with the medium we believe, but with our behaviour. If there is no demand that trade will not increase. That’s our thought on that.

Expert: As Ko Soe mentioned, Facebook is a most social, popular social media platform in the country, but actually, not only with the Facebook. The people are already trading wildlife in areas where demand exists in the country. So trade would continue when we want, and stop when we all become aware that consequence take action to change and behaviour and stop accepting this trade. So for me it is not only the Facebook, but the demand is a major for the wildlife trade in the country. That is the cases not only in Myanmar, that is also in the other developing countries.

MI to WWF: What have WWF has done so far, to encourage the platform, i.e., the Facebook to ban the sale of such endangered species, not only in Myanmar, but in other parts of the developing world?

Conservation groups in Myanmar and all over the world, including WWF have the collaboration with Facebook, and other social media and other e commerce companies to curtail the online wildlife trade through the coalition of End Wildlife Trafficking Online. This collaboration has resulted in the removal of thousands of trading groups on Facebook.

However, the researcher in Myanmar noted that that previously removed accounts, re-emerge in newly created groups doing 2021. So rather than looking into others to do more, we all need to ask ourselves, and our friends and family what more we can do personally. We all need to change our behaviour and the demand for the wildlife and wildlife products that drive the trade and the removal of the species from their habitats.

MI to Expert: What has been your proudest achievement in the protection of wildlife in your career?

Thank you actually. That is a very delightful question I want to raise. The wildlife protection cannot be done alone. So in this case, I’m more proudly of raising the awareness and that itself is a big challenge or issue in the country. And also in my free time, I work as an adjunct professor in the University, training wildlife specialists to ensure better wildlife protection in the country. We need more people in wildlife conservation. It’s my proud achievement in sharing my knowledge, mainly  focusing on the wildlife conservation.

MI to WWF: In your press release, you talked about this zoonotic diseases; the type of diseases that got transferred from animals to humans. You say a future zoonotic diseases are emerging. In China obviously, swine flu from pigs got transferred to humans, but in this specific areas of Southeast Asia especially Myanmar, what evidence have you got that of zoonotic type of diseases being happened in this area in the past?

WWF: We have some research in in last decade, Southeast Asia has been at the centre of global attention regarding emerging infectious diseases after SARS and strain of bird flu and locate appearance of deadly viruses such as Nipah Virus, and, also recurring emergence of new influenza H1N1 virus.

In a report by WWF, Germany named this region the Pandora’s box. In this report highlighted that the Southeast Asia has human zoonotic diseases risk, in areas where the wildlife markets are located. This report was published in August 2020. Also Southeast Asia was identified as a potential emerging hotspot due to the following factors: high mammals and bird diversity, high deforestation rate, the population growth, growing demand for animal proteins and most importantly, where exist and of wildlife consumption and trade overlap.

Just to give you some examples of some of the emergence of zoonotic disease in this region. The other thing is, worth mentioning is that we have all these factors actually. So, you have a potential of this happening, and all these factors are the one that will make it happen not just Myanmar. This is also quite similar in other countries like Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Expert: I just add in like some technical information that, in the wildlife there are several families and class like a mammal species, bird species, reptiles and amphibians species, aquatic species. In Myanmar, however, that is only a slightly different between the species to species, we have more diverse in the mammals species than the other wildlife species. That is one of the the factors that could contribute towards zoonotic diseases. If people are eating insects that is not so serious, as the species are far away from human kind, in terms of DNA. In an environment where there are more mammals species the diversity between human and mammals is likely to be smaller.

MI to Expert: I was told that you are currently researching on tigers in Myanmar, Indian border. I don’t know whether that is true or not.

Expert: Actually not only for the Myanmar Indian border. That’s for tigers inside the whole country.

MI to Expert: We recently read an article that the wild tiger population is actually higher than what has been estimated on paper previously. So what is your stand on that?

Expert: Yes wild tiger population increase. I agree on this. But we in this case we can classify the two different locations: low density country and high density country. Like India, Russia and Thailand, they are high density countries. For Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc., they are low density countries. We the tiger conservation team try a lot to double the tiger population in the near future, but that is a slightly different between the low density country and high density country. We are still struggling for the tiger density inside Myanmar. In general, the population increase but not for Myanmar. We are still trying to protect the heartland or the breeding ground of the tigers inside the country.

MI to Expert: Where can we find tigers in Myanmar?

This is a very good question. Normally, we did not mention the location of the tiger. But I can answer roughly that they are in the Northern and Southern part of Myanmar. In Northern part we call that area the Upper Chindwin landscape, along the borders of Sagaing and Kachin States. The  Southern part is within Dawna and Thanin Tharyi  landscape.

MI to WWF: Already with the low education and low analytical skills of people in rural Myanmar,  why do you think that this video alone is sufficient? If you don’t think is sufficient, what extras you have in your plan?

I think it is a misconception to think that the problem of illegal wildlife trade come from the rural people. Often the demand for life animals and their products come from urban centres. Keeping wild animals are incorrectly perceived by some to be kindness. And for many reasons, human home is not the right place as a home for wild animals. Also transporting the wildlife is not only cruel but also increases the possibility of zoonotic disease transmission, by putting all the animals in one place together with other species and people.

And as the famous slogan states, when the buying stops, the killing can too. This is also why in the price we pay campaign video, we add, you know, all Myanmar people in one place. I mean, in this video, we put different age group, genders and social economic economic status as a buyer. The meaning is that it is related not only to the urban population or the rural area people. It is related with all of us. This responsibility to take care of our wildlife, our heritage, and consequently our health lies with each of us.

Obviously, one campaign is not enough, there will be more work to be done. And we cannot just rely on just one campaign, one video to do the work. But every little work that we do will help us get closer towards the goal of you know, one day eliminating the trade. So if will ask us really honestly, is this sufficient? No. But it’s not the end of the activities that we’ll be doing. There’ll be more campaigns, you know, either by us or other organisations, all very passionate, trying our best to do what we can for the wildlife.

MI to Expert: What are your future plans in relation to the projects that you are going to do in the near future?

Thank you. Actually, that’s the plan I would like to highlight. This year is the year of the tiger in the Chinese Calendar and we have this plan to raise awareness of the urgent need to protect the Myanmar dwindling tiger population and we are also working to empower Myanmar’s youth to speak up at the national, regional, global platforms. That just is so much left to protect so much to do and we are more committed than ever to continue our work in Myanmar. We believe our work in Myanmar is key to achieving the global conservation and also the climate projects. So that is my plan in the future.

MI to Expert: When will you work with the tigers be completed?

That is another wildlife protection challenge. Conservation of tigers cannot be done within a short period. Not only for tigers but also for any other species. It may even take longer to plan for tiger population recovery within the country. There are several technical methods to recover the tiger population inside. There are several methods and approaches. What I can say is that this is not a short period project and have to make more efforts for a continuous protection of the species.

MI to Expert: How many tigers do you estimate to be still in Myanmar?

Oh, that is another tricky question for the wildlife conservation people. We use camera tracking which is mainly studying the striped patterns of the tiger body. Based on the 2018, both in the Northern and Southern landscape, minimum detection is only 28 or 29. That is a minimum. So the actual can be more than this. There are a lot of un-surveyed areas for the tigers. So we definitely have more than 28.

MI to Expert:  Very conservatively speaking, we have less than 50 tigers left in the whole country?

That’s very difficult to estimate because some area we did not know the detailed information. Some areas we can see, based on the ecology of the tiger, but some areas are still left un-surveyed. So it is very difficult to estimate whether it is 50 or 55. I have sighted nearly 30, so we can confidently say there are at least 30 tigers around.

Sometimes, it is also difficult to say because different organisations, different people and different experts, they all will have different things to say and sometimes this kind of thing become a controversy in getting the right number.

You can in fact, put a GPS collar on the tiger. Then we can observe how they are moving and understand their movements.

MI to WWF: Right now, WWF is tackling on educating the buying side. Should it not be tackling in the market as well as the logistics side? Because most of the wildlife, they are being shipped or transported on the on-highway buses or boats? How are you going to tackle that?

We do know the whole cycle right from, from the source to the buyer. So there are a lot of different players within the cycle. We are actually looking to work with each and every one of them. But obviously, all this all this take time. And also especially given the condition of our country right now, it’s even harder to do that. But we are trying, for example, you did mention some of the issues like FB, right? We have our coalition. We did that. We are also partnering with MITI, responsible tourism as well.

We are looking at more partners. But again, all these things, still go back to the end of the day to the consumer. You can tackle all these things. But if the consumer still demand for this, you will have find another way. So that’s why we need consumer to change your behaviour so that the consumer would say, no, we don’t buy this anymore. Then there is no demand for it, the supply will will eventually stop. Actually, people in Myanmar are very creative. I think you stop something, they will find another way to do something else. So, yes, we are definitely tackling all that. But that’s why we are doing this campaign specifically targeted to the audience, to everybody, to the public. Asking them to understand this issue and also to say no to it.

MI to Expert: Myanmar people, some of them has little or low education. They are poor. They got to survive first. So if somebody is buying a tiger, they found a tiger, probably they will kill it and sell it. In addition to this video alone, what what other things would you recommend to reduce the wildlife trade here?

Expert: Actually, as you mentioned like it, the people, if they see the tiger, and they kill it and sell it. That is really challenging. It is a developing country wildlife conservation issue, not only the Myanmar issue.

As you see in the video, this is not the rural only problem with the demand often driven by wealthy urban citizens. So we start creating awareness and we continue to do more as part of raising awareness. We believe it’s possible together. We will continue to more through programs and partnerships between private companies, civil society and local community. We cannot do it alone. Doing together part of it is our belief to stop the wildlife trade and also prevent further pandemics.