Project Shan State, Myanmar, the first international project pursued under the Doi Tung International Cooperation Programme extends humanitarian assistance to ethnic minority communities on the western aspect of Doi Tung - an area adjacent to the Doi Tung Development Project in the Thai province of Chiang Rai, through the introduction of the Doi Tung model of Sustainable Alternative Development in the Yong Kha (Yao Kha) administrative area in Shan State, and assists Myanmar authorities in their efforts to provide sustainable alternatives replacing opium cultivation and production Myanmar.
RATIONALE FOR THE PROJECT
Ridding the world of opium (and its derivative – heroin) is a world problem with issues around demand for the product mostly focused in the west, while those around eradication of supply are located in the countries where opium poppies are grown as a cash crop.
In the hill-tribe villages in the depths of Myanmar, opium has been a vital part of the rural economy for generations. Hence, when the most welcome decision by the Myanmar authorities to ban opium production comes into full effect in June 2005, it is these ‘grass-roots’ ethnic minority farmers – the people in the greatest need, who will suffer the full brunt of this monumental change if opium eradication is not accompanied by meaningful alternatives.
The success of the Doi Tung Development Project proves that the issue has never been drugs; it is poverty. While the lives of many hill tribes people in the Golden Triangle depended on opium production and trade, opium was essentially an economic crop - not intrinsic to the indigenous culture.
“Survival brinkmanship” is the reality for almost one third of the world’s population;
basic level poverty is all about the basic, primeval need to survive. If the opium trade is to stop, the international community needs to provide viable economic alternatives to help alleviate poverty in the communities that grow it.
Myanmar is in this ‘survival’ world where food security - the ability to guarantee annual food needs for one self and family, or survival, has first to be assured. Food security is the basic building block that needs to be in place before other aspects of development can be successfully achieved. Unfortunately in much of East Myanmar, food security is missing.
Doi Tung shares 24 kms of common border with Myanmar. It is this proximity to Myanmar that led to tentative first contact in 2002 by the national and local authorities in Myanmar to the Doi Tung Development Project, under the leadership of Chief Executive Officer M.R Disnadda Diskul, to explore how the Thai lessons and experiences could be shared with their ethnic “cousins” just across the border; where we find the same hill-tribe ethnic and language groupings, the same climate and soil – and the same grinding poverty that was present in Doi Tung in 1988.
With the alleviation of poverty being one of the founding mandates of the Doi Tung Development Project, this new project in Sustainable Alternative Developmnent across the border is seen to be a logical extension of the developmental activities undertaken by the ground breaking Doi Tung Development Project initiated by HRH the Princess Mother.
The strategic approach adopted for the ‘Doi Tung’ Sustainable Alternative Developmnent model for the pilot project in Yong Kha administrative area is based on the guiding principles established by HRH the Princess Mother and addresses the basic needs of the population namely - primary health and medical needs, food security, educational opportunities and the creation of alternative livelihoods.
‘DOI TUNG MODEL’ FOR Sustainable Alternative Development
PILOT PROJECT IN THE YONG KHA ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT
BACKGROUND
In the early 90’s, authorities in much of Myanmar – and areas of especially the northeast controlled by the Wa ethnic minority through its United Wa State Army (UWSA), publicly announced a total ban on opium cultivation and production by June 2005.
In this part of Myanmar, in the wet season, the Wa mountain communities are able to grow one, limited, crop of rice a year – and herein lies the problem. In such a mountainous environment, what they can grow is only sufficient for 7 months of food. Thus, some form of dry-season alternative cash crop has always needed to be grown that will allow the villagers to buy rice sufficient for 5 months.
Opium has been the cash crop that has historically filled this role and provided the necessary extra revenue. There is a ready market because it is a crop that can be easily sold on the international markets in the form of heroin – which addicts and social consumers the world over demand. Local use has historically been limited – mostly for medicinal purposes rather than addiction - so it is a classic cash crop that the world markets need and that the Wa people can grow to meet their own needs for rice.
CROP SUBSTITUTION IN PROGRESS
UN satellite data shows that cultivation is down to 62,000 hectares in 2003, from 163,000 in 1996. At different, remote villages, large areas are visible with either dead, dried-out poppy plants from last years crop, or land that had been the site of poppy cultivation until recently.
In its place, thousands of hectares of rubber, tea, coffee, and fruit tree plantations are visible, funded (mainly) by Wa development programmes. Additional land is being placed into irrigation for rice; all reflecting efforts being made not only to suppress opium, but more importantly, to replace it with viable alternatives.
THE THAI EXPERIENCE IN Sustainable Alternative Development AND CROP SUBSTITUTION: RESULTS ACHIEVED
Since the inception of the Doi Tung Development Project Under Royal Patronage, initiated by HRH the Princess Mother, in 1988, it has successfully ‘cleared’ 150 sq kms in the “Golden Triangle” area of opium cultivation and totally transformed an area of previously environmentally ravaged land (through illegal logging, “slash and burn” farming techniques and the production of opium). These problems are virtually identical to those in Shan State in neighbouring Myanmar.
However, in Thailand over the last 16 years, Doi Tung has managed to provide the 11,000 previous poppy farmers with an eight-fold increase in their income through a variety of different revenue-earning activities, bringing them to a per capita level of nearly $800 annually - and the opium poppy has totally disappeared.
It also means that the women in the area are no longer obliged to seek the additional money that they need to survive through prostitution. Better still, the reduction in prostitution has a direct effect on the fight against AIDS – a disease that is ravaging the region and no more so than in the border areas of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
In Doi Tung, this development has been accomplished in an integrated manner; in addition to providing viable economic alternatives, education and health care have been provided, electricity, phones and fresh water are available at the 27 hill-tribe villages that make up the project and the area is fully accessible by road.
‘DOI TUNG MODEL’ FOR THE SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVE DEVELOPMENT PILOT PROJECT
IN THE YONG KHA ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT
In 2002 a very successful integrated pilot project was established in Yong Kha – adjacent to Doi Tung - and although it is still in its early days, the visible results are evident. One of the main poppy-growing areas in the desperately poor Shan State is where the Wa and central government have been undertaking their own development of livelihood alternatives in the run-up to the opium ban in 2005.
Significant progress is being made (much without any foreign assistance, however with some help from the UNODC, the Japanese and the Chinese). The progress to date is impressive but insufficient – and in 2005 is when it will really start to hurt in those areas where there simply are not enough alternative cash crops to make up the shortfall to buy 5 months of rice – the difference between what the land will sustain and what they need to survive.
Doi Tung is part of the initiative of the Thai King’s “30 year journey” against opium cultivation in Thailand. Although the Doi Tung Development Project Under Royal Patronage was founded by HRH The Princess Mother, the King’s mother, it has had the support of successive governments.
The extension into Myanmar is no different and in 2002 the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra decided to finance the extension across the border through the pilot project in the Yong Kha area – the first international cooperation programme undertaken by the Doi Tung Development Project.
Initial seed money of $500,000 was provided for the pilot (recently doubled) and the project now has sufficient funds to proceed.
Yong Kha consists of a group of villages in Myanmar, slightly south west of Doi Tung and about 27 kms distance in a direct line. It is a region to which approximately 13,000 hill tribe and ethnic minority people (mainly but not exclusively from the Wa ethnic group) have been resettled by Wa authorities in recent years – taking them from their traditional remote villages in the mountains in northeast Myanmar, to lowlands.
In Yong Kha, a team from the Doi Tung Development Project initiated discussions with local leaders. Three immediate priorities – health, education, and immediate food security – were jointly identified. In addition, plans to provide meaningful higher value cash crops that would take the community beyond the survival threshold and provide them and the region with opportunities for disposable income over time were examined.
A health centre with 16 beds was constructed immediately to respond to the medical needs of the community. A school for 500 children was erected at the same time. In this mountainous area, irrigation is an essential component of food security and cash crops. Accordingly, in January 2003 construction began on a 20 km irrigation canal with 6 weirs.
The response here is the provision of hundreds of thousands of macadamia seedlings; it’s the world’s most expensive nut, demand for it is increasing (especially in neighbouring China) and – importantly – it grows well in the Doi Tung and Yong Kha climate.
All of these were operational within 6 months, by July 2003 and the results are astonishing. All the local ethnic groups are using the facilities; the school is fully operative, as is the clinic. Both health and education are, of course, vital long term infrastructure projects – children take time to get educated, and good health is built up not only by the presence of a heath center but also as a result of better food over time as well as improved education and sanitation. Irrigation is however another matter and is a key response to understanding the relocation programme.
REFERENCE INFORMATION
The Geographic Landscape of Rurual Shan State
The Political Landscape in Myanmar
|
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
