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TO meet Mr Alan Rabinowitz is to come face-to-face with an impressive picture of apparently perfect physical health. At the age of 53, the American wildlife biologist has a boxer’s physique and the vigor of a tiger.
But beneath this veneer of fitness, Mr Rabinowitz is fighting an insidious disease: In 2002 he was diagnosed with an incurable form of leukemia – chronic lymphatic leukemia – symptoms of which doctors said would likely start appearing in about eight years from now.
While some people might be devastated into idle depression by such news, this ticking time bomb has only served to boost Mr Rabinowitz’s motivation to continue his life’s work of saving the endangered big cats of Southeast Asia and South America.
Any discussion about Mr Rabinowitz, who serves as the executive director of science and exploration for the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), would be incomplete without talking about Myanmar, a country that he refers to as a biological “pot of gold” because of its vast tracts of unspoiled forestland, rich biodiversity of flora and fauna, unspoiled coastline, large freshwater lakes and long rivers, high untrammeled mountains and strings of virtually untouched islands.
But this natural abundance has also attracted large-scale exploitation of saleable resources such as timber, minerals and fish. Caught in the crossfire have been big animals that depend on wild forests for their survival, not least of which is one of the endangered species most beloved by Mr Rabinowitz – tigers.
The biologist was first captivated by the idea of traveling to Myanmar while working in neighbouring Thailand conducting research on rare clouded leopards.
“Every biologist for years has been trying to get into Burma, because Burma to a biologist was the pot of gold,” he told AFP.
Mr Rabinowitz, who earned a PhD in wildlife biology, first came to Myanmar in 1993. He considered this initial visit successful to some extent because he was able to hold discussions with two officials from the Ministry of Forestry at his hotel.
The meeting marked the first steps on a long road to tiger recovery in Myanmar on which Mr Rabinowitz has tirelessly trod for the past 13 years.
His efforts first bore fruit in 1998 when the government create the 1500-square-mile Hkakabo Razi National Park in northernmost Kachin State.
Authorities followed up in 2004 by setting aside 8500 square miles in Kachin State near the Indian border for the Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. This area, about the same size as the US state of Vermont, is reportedly the largest forested reserve in Asia to be protected by wildlife police.
“Hukaung Valley has maybe 100 tigers,” Mr Rabinowitz told The Myanmar Times in February. “The potential population compared to densities of protected areas we have looked at in India – the potential for the habitat – is probably 600 to 700 tigers.”
“I think we easily have the potential in the next 10 years of bringing back 150 percent of the tiger population, which means 100 to 250 more tigers,” he said. “Things look great for the near future. In the past 13 years of work, the future for tigers right now in Myanmar is looking better than I’ve ever seen it.”
In another interview with The Myanmar Times last year, Mr Rabinowitz explained that tigers are not endangered because people hunt them but because locals have over-hunted the large mammals that tigers rely on as a food source, including sambar, barking deer and wild pigs.
As a result, part of his approach to conserving the big cats has included negotiating with locals to curb their hunting.
“One of the rules is that we cannot make the people who live there move out,” he said. “If we’re going to protect an area we must help the people and the wildlife.”
However, convincing villagers to stop hunting is not easy work because wild animals are a source of food for them as well. WCS has responded to the challenge by supplying villages with pigs and chickens, and providing training on how to raise livestock.
“Conservation cannot work unless local people feel good about what is happening around them,” Mr Rabinowitz explained.
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment in Myanmar has been working with the government to establish the Northern Forest Complex, a vast 13,500-square-mile reserve spanning Kachin State and Sagaing Division that links four existing protected areas he helped create: Hkakabo Razi National Park, Hpongkan Razi National Park, Bumphabum Wildlife Sanctuary and Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve.
With all that he has accomplished since coming to Myanmar more than a decade ago, Mr Rabinowitz knows that there is still plenty more to be done as long he walks on this earth.
Since his leukemia diagnosis he has become even more determined not to slow down, despite the heartbreak of being away from his wife, seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughter back in New York for long stretches of time.
“Once I was diagnosed, there was no retirement in my life, no beautiful hidden-away house,” he said. “I will work until I die. Now I have to do as much as possible in this life.”
“My life defines me. It’s what I am,” he said.
Mr Rabinowitz said he was not afraid of death but was fearful of the fact that he would leave his young children in need of him.
“I’m really torn. I do have two passions,” he said. “I want so badly to be with my children, but when I’m with them, frankly, all I think about is being in the jungle because I feel like there is so much I could be doing.”
“Myanmar is too important to walk away from. Until every last animal is killed by the human race, there is a chance I will keep on pushing to save the animals,” he said.
(With AFP)
This story was first published in the print edition of The Myanmar Times.
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