"Preserving Burma?s forests and wildlife is a pursuit that goes beyond politics... On his first expedition into the forests of northern Burma, Alan Rabinowitz and his team traveled 100 miles down the Chindwin River and then hiked for several days into the heart of Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary. There he began to hunt for signs of tigers, elephants, and the rare Sumatran rhino. Like many conservationists, he believed that Burma?s forests contain Southeast Asia?s healthiest wildlife populations. But he found Htamanthi?s forests strangely empty. The next day his team met two Lisu hunters who admitted that they came each year for wildlife parts—tiger bones, bear gall bladders, even rhino horns before the animal disappeared—to sell to Chinese traders. "That?s indicative of what?s going on across the country," Rabinowitz says, as he sits down for an interview outside a camp shelter in Thailand?s Kaeng Krachan National Park. "Despite the beautiful amounts of forest, the wildlife is getting hammered."..."