Thailand, Laos and Vietnam to create Eco-Tourism super highway

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Thailand, Laos and Vietnam should jointly develop Routes 8 and 12 as eco-tourism routes linking the three countries rather than focusing on the highways as a trade route competing with Route 9.

The Tad Pha Suam waterfall in Bachiang Chaleunsouk district of Champasak, Laos, is a popular site for tourists.

Vitavas Srivihok, the Thai ambassador to Vientiane, said Thailand would raise the issue with Laos and Vietnam to co-operate on eco-tourism as the two routes have good potential for eco-tourism, given the number of caves, waterfalls and other attractive features along the way.

Goods transported to Vietnam via Laos on Routes 8 and 12 currently face problems because the Laotian Customs Department treats them as imported goods destined for re-export, thereby having to pay higher duties, said a transport industry source.

Goods transported via Route 9 are treated differently as it is mentioned in the Cross Border Transport Agreement under the Greater Mekong Sub-region framework and thus eligible for lower duties.

This has made transport costs higher and inspections more strict when the goods were transported via Routes 8 and 12, said the source.

Route 8 links Nakhon Phanom in Thailand with Tha Khak of Khammouane in Laos before linking to Route 12 in Laos to Dong Hoi in Vietnam and on to China. Route 9 links Mukdahan in Thailand via Savannakhet of Laos to Danang of Vietnam.

Mr Vitavas said he hoped that when the third Thai-Lao Bridge across the Mekong River linking Nakhon Phanom and Khammouane opens in November next year, it will help facilitate more tourism and trade on this route.

“Laos doesn’t want to be treated as a passageway [but this will require it to] develop its potential for tourism on Routes 8 and 12,” he said.

The weakness of Vietnam on the two routes is that its tourist spots are not connected to each other, he said.

However, Vietnam is discussing with France a proposal to build a bullet train line from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City which would result in lower volumes of air passengers and freight, said Mr Vitavas.

He said he would like to utilise the economic corridor as a tourism corridor as Laos is the best location for creating a link with four countries: Thailand, Burma, China, and Vietnam.

“Travelling through Laos will be the shortest way. If the roads in Laos can be connected, we can easily travel to all five countries in this region,” said Mr Vitavas.

He also urged the GMS members – Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and southern China – to co-operate on tourism more seriously.

He said better joint promotion of tourism was a good way to help alleviate poverty as foreign tourists like to visit many Asian countries at one time to save costs and time.

“There are few countries in the world that jointly promote regional tourism, such as those in Europe, the Caribbean countries and Pacific island countries,” said Mr Vitavas.

He said that of the total 2 million visitors to Laos last year, 1.3 million were Thais.

To promote tourism in the region, there should be a single visa and shared infrastructure, he added.

Mr Vitavas said the strategy for tourism promotion should include a common market with three to five countries treated as one destination. As well, it will be important to develop the human resources, encourage cross-border facilitation, private-sector participation and tourism-related infrastructure.

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12 Asian Nations pledge to save tigers

From the New York Times: A dozen Asian nations and Russia vowed Friday to double the number of wild tigers by 2022, crack down on poaching that has devastated the big cats and prohibit the building of roads and bridges that could harm their habitats.

However, the historic declaration adopted by the 13 countries that have wild tigers includes no new money to finance the conservation efforts. The agreement only includes plans to approach international institutions like the World Bank for money and to develop schemes to tap money from ecotourism, carbon financing and infrastructure projects to pay for tiger programs.

”This is a historic meeting. Before this, not many people paid attention to tigers,” Thailand‘s Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Suwit Khunkitti said after the three-day meeting in Hua Hin. ”Stopping the depletion of tigers is a very important issue for all of us.”

The declaration will now be considered for approval by heads of state of the 13 countries in September at a meeting in Vladivostok, Russia.

Tiger numbers in recent decades have plummeted because of human encroachment — with the loss of more than nine-tenths of their habitat — and poaching to supply a vibrant trade in tiger parts. From an estimated 100,000 at the beginning of the 20th century, the number of tigers today is less than 3,500.

Along with a target for doubling tiger populations, countries agreed to protect core tiger habitats as well as buffer zones and corridors that connect key sanctuaries and national parks. Governments also committed to reduce poaching through beefed-up law enforcement and to minimize human-tiger conflicts through job creation programs and other efforts.

The only setback, delegates said, was a successful effort by China to take out language in the draft declaration that called for maintaining a permanent ban on the tiger trade. China’s concern is the impact the language would have on its domestic tiger trade, which has been banned since 1993 but which they have lobbied to reopen at some point.

Conservationists said the declaration included all the components for ensuring the tigers’ steady recovery, though they warned much work had to be done to ensure all the promises were implemented.

”This is excellent news for tiger conservation,” said Michael Baltzer, who heads the WWF Tiger Initiative and attended the meeting.

”Simply, there never has been a high-level government commitment to take forward tiger conservation,” Baltzer said. ”The fact the governments committed to doubling the numbers of tigers shows they have high ambition. They are setting the bar at a high level.”

The World Bank’s Keshav Varma, program director for the Global Tiger Initiative, said the declaration represents a new way of thinking among governments and donors.

”There is a new trend in society to save biodiversity, to be more conscious of climate change, to look at sustainability, to look at green development,” Varma said. ”It is a huge change and this is a manifestation of this change.”

Varma and Baltzer downplayed the absence of financial commitments in the document, saying they expected pledges to be forthcoming in Russia as donors get a clearer idea of conservation plans that come out of this declaration and the cost of implementing them.

”Now that we have commitment from governments, the next step is bringing donor partners on board,” Baltzer said. ”Even here the donors came together and started talking about how they could be partners in this whole process.”

The meeting was organized by Thailand and the Global Tiger Initiative, a coalition formed in 2008 by the World Bank, the Smithsonian Institute and nearly 40 conservation groups.

The 13 countries attending the meeting were Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

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Cave exploration in Thailand

Today must be Thailand day.  I have word that a region in Thailand offers eco-friendly tours of caves in the region.  The region is Trang, and the cave is Tham Khao Kop (Khao Kop Cave) .

A canal from the Banthat Mountain Range is divided into 3 waterways upon reaching Khao Kop, with 2 going around the mountain and the other flowing through the cave under the mountain. An amazing natural wonder, the main attraction at Khao Kop is this stream which flows through the cave. In addition, the cave itself looks like a high and steep cliff with layers of rocks and stalactites and stalagmites magnificently decorating the cave for a distance of approximately 4 kilometers.

Currently, the Khao Kop Tambon Administration Organization provides rowboats to facilitated visitors explorations of the cave. In addition, eco-tourism and light-adventure activities are provided by the locals.

More information at this link: http://i-thebest.blogspot.com/2008/11/destination-guide-trang.html