Myanmar to build ecotourism

YANGON Myanmar will cooperate with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, an environmental think-tank based in Nepal, to develop an ecotourism policy and a management strategy for protected areas in the country.
The International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism in Nay Pyi Taw last month.
According to the centre’s media release, it will help to promote the natural and cultural assets of Myanmar’s protected areas, from Lampi Marine National Park in the south to the Hkakaborazi National Park in the north.
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Director of Human Resource Development Department, Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, U Than Win, and ICIMOD’s Director of Strategic Cooperation, Basanta Shrestha, at the signing of an agreement on the development of an ecotourism policy and management strategy for protected areas in Nya Pi Taw, Myanmar.
It will also provide local people with alternative livelihood options, outside of the traditional use of natural resources.
The Ministry of Hotels and Tourism (MOHT), in collaboration with the Ministry of Environmental Conservation and Forestry (MOECAF) and the Myanmar Tourism Federation (MTF), is leading the process of collecting inputs from a variety of stakeholders on their views and experiences with ecotourism.
Tourism minister, U Htay Aung, said the Ecotourism Policy and Management Strategy’s key role is promoting quality tourism that also engages the communities living in and around Myanmar’s protected areas.
Individual protected areas are part of national protected area networks formed to conserve representative examples of nature-based assets and ecosystems.
ICIMOD’s Strategic Cooperation director, Basanta Shrestha, added the MoU has been designed to help facilitate an enabling environment that would allow ecotourism to prosper.
Myanmar is one of ICIMOD’s eight regional member countries. It has been a member since the Centre’s founding, with MOECAF as its focal ministry.

sourced:ttrweekly.com