The Mong La Connection
An evening with acclaimed conservationist, wildlife photographer and filmmaker Karl Ammann, discussing the Asian trade in endangered species, with presentation of his award-winning documentary film

 

 

8pm Weds, March 24, 2010

Non-members: 300 baht

 

Mong La is a town in northern Myanmar's Shan State which grew rich first from the opium trade, then more recently as a centre for gambling and prostitution aimed at nouveau riche Chinese businessmen and tourists from across the border in neighboring Yunnan province.

The visitors brought with them an appetite for specialty wildlife foods, a demand which restaurateurs in Mong La were eager to meet, and on just one main street can be found an open display of live bear cubs and monkeys, cobras and reptiles of every description, pangolins and an aviary's worth of birds. Tiger-bone wine is a popular after-dinner drink. In the central market are butchered dogs, live owls and other rare birds, and a charnel house of dried flesh and bones from tigers, a wealth of primates and various other threatened or endangered species.

This gruesome business is well entrenched, in direct contravention of the laws of both Myanmar and China, and, as it moves across the border, in violation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to which both countries are signatories. It is tolerated because semi-official government policy holds that it is better than growing opium, and because there is money involved.

Karl Ammann is a Swiss conservationist, wildlife photographer and documentary filmmaker who has won some of conservation's most coveted honors including several Genesis awards. An advisor to the World Society for the Protection of Animals and the Cheetah Conservation Fund, was nominated by Time magazine as a hero of the environment and is the co-author and photographer for several highly regarded books, including "Eating Apes," "Great Apes & Humans: the Ethics of Coexistence," "Consuming Nature," and, most recently, "Elephant Reflections."

Please join us as we welcome Karl Ammann to the FCCT, screen his award-winning documentary, The Mong La Connection, and engage in a thought-provoking discussion of the future of Asian wildlife and role and effectiveness of CITES in preserving diversity in the wild in this, the United Nations Year of Biodiversity.

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