guwahati the wildlife conservation society india wcsi nagaland wildlife and biodiversity conservation trust and wcs myanmar have embarked upon a longterm initiative for reconnecting tiger and other wildlife populations in the indomyanmarese region the project supported by the integrated tiger habitat conservation program is a sciencebased conservation effort spearheaded by wcs india and wcs myanmar to increase movement of wildlife between the forests of northeast and northwestern myanmarout of eight ne states arunachal pradesh manipur mizoram and nagaland together share a 1643km border with myanmar these states form a contiguous landscape and wildlife habitats with myanmar besides political reasons habitat destruction has disturbed many corridors used by animals for their movement experts said the northeast is rich in biodiversity as the region is located on the transitional zone between indian indomalayan and indochinese biogeographic realmwcs which is working with the myanmar government to increase the number of threatened species said connectivity of wildlife in that country with source populations in the northeast is crucial for longterm conservation of these speciesour focus is to help animals move while safeguarding the lives of people communitybased conservation is the foundation of our project said wcs indias senior scientist varun goswami goswami who is leading the initiaitive said there is little knowledge available at present on the movement of animals across the indiamyanmar border he added that there is a need to undertake a largescale survey to assess wildlife distribution across the two regions while under act east policy india is stepping forward for better trade and cultural links with southeast asian countries conservationists said helping connectivity for wildlife species with neighbouring countries through corridors and habitat restorations have become imperative for a longterm conservationanimals dont always move through corridors we demarcate for them they use routes they view as least threatening where do animals disperse what prevents them from dispersing these are the questions that are most important for connectivity conservation said wcs india connectivity expert divya vasudev