Local fishermen ply the waters of Moyingyi Wetland Wildlife Sanctuary.

MYANMAR Bird and Nature Society has unveiled plans to release up to 300,000 fish in the Moyingyi Wetland Wildlife Sanctuary in Bago Division later this month as the first step of a program to support wetlands conservation throughout the country.

The society plans to release between 200,000 and 300,000 fish into the Moyingyi Wetland Wildlife Sanctuary, Bago Division, which is listed as an important wetland by the international Ramsar Convention on Wetlands; Myanmar signed this agreement in 2005.

“The idea is to support Moyingyi’s environment by adding fish that will provide vital sustenance for the birds and animals that depend on the wetland for their survival,” said U Soe Nyunt, the society’s chairperson.

“An ecosystem is a localised environment in which living animals depend on each other. In a wetland, for example, aquatic animals provide food for many other species like birds. It is critical in any ecosystem that nothing gets out of balance,” he said.

The society is consulting with the Department of Fisheries over the size and species of fish to be released, so as to prevent disruption to the wetland’s ecosystem.

It has been tentatively agreed that fish from the Barbus family (nga-khone-ma) between five and 7.5 centimetres (two to three inches) long will be released.
U Soe Nyunt said the society chose the Moyingyi site as their first target because it is an ideal wetland site within easy reach of its Yangon office.

About 70 miles from Yangon, Moyingyi was established as a sanctuary in 1988 and declared an ecotourism site in the mid-1990s. It was listed as an important site under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands in 2005, when Myanmar became a signatory of the intergovernmental treaty on conserving wetlands of international importance.

The wetland is the permanent home of 125 bird species and is visited temporarily each year by 40 migratory species. About 15,000 people in nearby villages depend on the sanctuary to supplement their diets because there is limited space for agriculture in the area.

U Soe Nyunt said the conservation plan might sound odd to many people because the society will be adding fish to wetlands rather than taking them out.
“We want to make people aware that there are a lot of aspects involved in conservation and we want them to follow suit,” he said.

“Myanmar people often release fish as a religious tradition to gain merit. For us it’s different; our aim is to improve the environment for everyone.”

He said the society aims to carry out the activity annually.