Burma Creates World's Largest Tiger Preserve

(NewsCore) - A remote region in the north of Burma was declared Tuesday to be sacred territory for the world's dwindling population of tigers.

The Hukaung Valley, a place about the size of the U.S. state of Vermont, has been declared the world's largest tiger preserve.

Tuesday's announcement is not only a victory for the big cats.

It is a major win for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which runs the Bronx Zoo, and the cat conservation group, Panthera, who have been lobbying the government of Burma for more than a decade to set aside a massive piece of land and give it to wildlife.

"I have dreamt of this day for many years," said Alan Rabinowitz, CEO of Panthera.

Rabinowitz, a wildlife biologist, started the project while working for WCS.

"This reserve is one of the most important stretches of tiger habitat in the world."

The preserve stretches 6,748 square miles (17,400sq km) through what biologists believe is the last best hope in the world for the survival of tigers, one of the most endangered cat species on the planet.

Fewer than 100 years ago, more than 100,000 of this species of big cat roamed wild in Asia. Today, there are fewer than 3,000 in existence, primarily because of illegal hunting.

The designation protects some of the last expanses of closed forest in the Indo-Pacific region and one of the most important ecosystems, including wetlands, that are critical for the long-term conservation of large mammals including tigers, clouded leopards and Asian elephants.

The world's remaining tiger populations exist in small, fragmented pockets of land where the big cats are under threat from illegal hunting.

The Hukaung Valley reserve connects several of these key territories, creating a huge swath of land where they will be protected.