For the third year, final-term undergraduate students from the University of Hong Kong, led by Ashley Scott Kelly and assisted by Maxime Decaudin, travelled overland from Thailand to Myanmar to study regional development and conservation impacts in Myanmar's Tanintharyi Region. Preceding the trip, the students spent 6 weeks producing a 120-page research report that combined detailed timelines on investment and conservation, regional case studies, and site-specific studies on landscape processes from mining extraction to wildlife movement. During their travel, the students visited large industrial estates along Thailand's Eastern Seaboard, including Map Ta Phut and Laem Chabang, Dawei's resettlement housing and community forest programmes, met with several Myanmar civil society organizations and international environmental NGOs, and participated in a village-led conservation ceremony.
The students, Maxime, and Ashley extend their thanks to the people of Michaunglaung, the people of Kamoethway, Rays of Kamoethway Indigenous People and Nature, Dawei Development Association, Spirit in Education Movement, forestry officials at the Tanintharyi Nature Reserve Project, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the World Wide Fund for Nature.
