Mergui Archipelago, located in southernmost part of Myanmar, comprises over 200 islands. Due to its virtual isolation, the islands and surrounding seas are alive with an amazing diversity of flora & fauna. Geologically, the islands are characterized mainly by limestone and granite. They are as a general rule covered with thick tropical growth, including rainforest, and their shorelines are punctuated by beaches, rocky headlands, and in some places, mangrove swamps. Offshore are extensive coral reefs. The archipelago's virtual isolation from most of mankind's unwholesome influence on the natural environment has given the islands and the surrounding waters of the Andaman Sea a great diversity of flora and fauna, contributing to the region's growing popularity as a diving destination. On the islands themselves, various animals thrive, including deer, elephants, monkeys, tigers and wild swine. There are even unconfirmed reports of Sumatran rhinoceros on Lampi, one of the bigger islands. Environmental threats to the region include overfishing and also blast fishing. Burma's current military government, the "State Peace and Development Council", has not done much to deal with these problems. The local people are an ethnic minority called the Moken, sometimes known as sea Gypsies, although this term actually covers several groups in Southeast Asia. They are a sea-dwelling people and they follow a traditional way of life, doing things such as fishing and building boats very much the way they have been done for centuries. They can be found living on their traditional boats during the dry season, but usually keep to land in the rainy season.
The area was only opened up to foreign tourism in 1997 after negotiations between Burma and dive operators from Phuket in Thailand. The archipelago's isolation is such that much of it has not even yet been thoroughly explored. Owing to the archipelago's remoteness, a live aboard cruise is the only way for visitors to go diving in areas with names such as Big Bank, Rainbow Reef or Silvertip Bank. Some islands have huge boulders, soft corals and sea fans. Others offer wall diving, caverns, tunnels and drop-offs. Dive sites such as Shark Cave feature grey reef, bull, nurse and whale sharks. Black Rock has manta rays and schools of mobula (devil) rays. Photographers are attracted by frogfish, ghost pipefish, ribbon eels and cowries as well as many crustaceans such as lobsters, crabs, and shrimps. The best diving conditions exist from December to April, with whale sharks and manta rays visiting from February to May. The big question on the minds of those lucky enough to have experienced this amazingly pristine world is how will the Burmese develop their natural treasure? Mass tourism and uncontrolled development of the kind epitomised by Pattaya and Patong Beach in Thailand could swiftly turn these uncut diamonds to shards of glass. Is there the wisdom and political will to protect the natural state of the islands while exploiting the wealth they promise impoverished Myanmar?
The Andaman coast of Thailand has scores of tropical islands, forming a fabulous marine playground that attracts countless thousands of visitors each year. But further up the coast, just across the border in Myanmar, one of the wonders of the natural world slumbers, almost undisturbed. Here is an archipelago of 800 islands of stunning, tropical beauty that man has scarcely touched. Unlike the Thais, whose culture has tied them to water and the oceans for centuries, the Burmese people have shunned the ocean, and their inheritance of islands remains almost completely uninhabited, and in near-pristine condition. Throughout earth’s tropical belt there remains no other island group in such a state, virtually untouched and unchanged by man. Exploding human populations have brought permanent change or serious desecration to all tropical regions, sparing almost no island that harbours forests, wildlife or other significant resources. Here in Myanmar the lack of human interference is believed to have left some of the larger islands with the full range of animal life that is no longer found undisturbed on the Asian mainland, including elephants, tigers, deer, wild boar and many others. There is even talk of the near-extinct Sumatran rhino quietly grazing the dense forests on Lampi, one of the largest of the islands. Myanmar’s archipelago has been protected by the same politics that have made this nation an international outcast and held the country in a time warp, unchanged and undeveloped through the last half century. Only in the past five years has Myanmar’s military government begun to realise the value of these islands, opening a small crack through which limited boatloads of divers and adventure-hungry visitors can enter. But the future promises an increasingly open policy and ever-growing numbers of tourists.
