Case Study:
The Dawna Tenasserim Landscape – a single road that threatens tigers across Myanmar and Thailand
The Dawna Tenasserim Landscape (DTL), which stretches along the Thailand–Myanmar border, is home to the largest population of tigers in the Greater Mekong region.56 The DTL covers more than 30,000 square kilometres of protected areas and its diverse forest ecosystem supports many endemic and endangered species, such as the Asian elephant and the Siamese crocodile.57 The Thai side of the DTL is home to 200 of the estimated 250 wild tigers left in the Greater Mekong region, making it a crucial landscape for tiger conservation.58,59 The forest landscape also supports hundreds of thousands of local people by providing food, energy, clean water and protection from natural hazards. The DTL’s wildlife corridors provide tiger populations in Thailand and Myanmar with critical connectivity to one another. Due to their small population, Myanmar’s tigers depend on the connection to tiger populations in Thailand for breeding to sustain their population.60 The DTL’s forest blocks create transboundary corridors that
16 THE ROAD AHEAD
