It will attract millions of tourists. Most importantly, it will be a sign to the world that Burma, shunned because of its appalling human rights record, cares about endangered wildlife and the environment. All the Rangoon government needed was a few major international conservation organizations to turn a blind eye to atrocities committed against an irksome ethnic minority. It also claimed to have 'an open channel of communication' with the Worldwide Fund for Nature International, whose patron is Prince Philip. The junta running Burma was thrilled - as we discovered when, after our dispiriting trek into the jungle, we made for Rangoon to see if a Minister would talk about the project and the role of those conservation giants.
Security is tight, more so since a bomb exploded in Rangoon three months ago.
The Ministry was surrounded by barbed wire and bougainvillaea. A dozen soldiers, bayonets glinting in the sun, stopped us at the first road block. We had dressed in khaki and boots to add plausibility to our guise as environmental researchers from a British University, but we had no appointment, no letter of introduction. The soldiers were suspicious but sent us on to the next roadblock to put our case to the military intelligence officers, sinister figures in pale blue uniforms and reflector sunglasses. But they seemed to buy our story and we were ushered into a spartan office where two senior Ministry figures received us with a mixture of scepticism and delight that respectable British scientists were interested in their 'big idea'.