Activists: Proposed Myanmar Highway ‘Ecological, Social Disaster’
Community and conservation groups in Myanmar have branded a planned highway linking a port project to Thailand an “ecological and social disaster,” saying it would uproot indigenous people from their homes and farms. Critics said an environmental and social impact assessment for the road project, approved by the Myanmar government in June, failed to adequately specify compensation for loss of land and livelihoods, among other problems. “This is a road to an ecological and social disaster (in Myanmar),” said Christy Williams, Myanmar director for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), an international conservation group. The highway is considered strategically important to both nations as it would link Thailand to a deep-sea port and planned Special Economic Zone (SEZ) in Dawei, a town on the Myanmar side of an isthmus…