“Protecting Our Indigenous Heritage for Our Healthy Environment and Peaceful Future”
On December 18th, the indigenous Karen communities of Mutraw District officially declare the establishment of the Salween Peace Park. This declaration is to fulfill the collective vision for a grassroots pathway to peace and self-determination, and their responsibility to transfer our ancestral domain to the new generation with abundant forest and clean water.
Almost 1000 people, comprising representatives from our communities in Mutraw District, the KNU, Karen CBOs, ethnic representatives from across Burma/ Myanmar and journalists- both domestic and from abroad, joined the event.
Through numerous consultations with and between communities and KNU authorities, the village tract, township and district levels, and with 75.1% of the voting-age population endorsing the SPP Charter during the signature campaign in 2018, the Salween Peace Park initiative finally made it way to what we see today.
The SPP initiative is guided by the three core aspirations: peace and self-determination, environmental integrity, and cultural survival. Ultimately, this initiative aims to create peace and to protect this stronghold of Karen culture and biodiversity from threats, both old and new. Rooted in Karen customary management systems, social and environmental justice, and deliberative democracy; the SPP will present what good governance of natural resources looks like at the local level. It will show that in these verdant rolling hills no land is vacant, and every patch of soil, every plant, animal, and human coexist peacefully in a holistically managed ecosystem.