The silent forest a peace park in Myanmar

There is a region of forest in South East Asia that remains more or less intact. Perversely it's been protected from logging, poaching and development by seven decades of civil conflict. The local Karen people live in refugee camps just inside Thailand but also remain in their thousands in the Myanmar forest living as they have always done while fighting for an independent homeland. A recent peace deal means that for the first time it may be possible for logging to begin, dams to be built, open cast gold mining to expand, roads and a deep water port to be built. The Karen are trying to create a vast ‘peace park’ to preserve their astonishing natural habitat from these same forces that have destroyed so much forest in the previous countries we have visited in this four-part series. ABC RN Earshot and the BBC World Service head into the Myanmar forest to a training camp for Karen forest rangers who will police the forest if such a park can be created. This is a place alive with all of the flora and fauna that have usually disappeared. It is so noisy and vibrant with life that a Silent Forest is only a bad dream.  Is this the final moment before a storm of exploitation and destruction makes that bad dream a reality?  Or can something different and new be created by the Karen? After 68 years of civil war everything hangs in the balance. We talk with Karen villagers, forest rangers and the people helping the Karen create their policy for managing the forest, and most important of all we walk beneath the canopy and hear at last, the way the forest should sound. Guests: Clare Campbell, director, Wildlife Asia. Paul Sein Twa, Director of KESAN (Karen Environmental and Social Action Network). Saw Mabu  Jaratpratprueang, Land and forest resource management coordinator, KESAN. Sulak Sivaraksa, Siamese intellectual and founder of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. Sawbusay, SawGaysay, Sawtahtoo - elders of the village of Paw Ka Doh. Sound engineer: Judy Rapley. October 2017.