Indawgyi Lake in Kachin State, located in the northern part of Myanmar, is the largest inland freshwater lake of the country with a rich aquatic flora and fauna, rich biodiversity and is still a largely intact ecosystem. Since 1999, the area has been declared as the "Indawgyi Wetland Bird Sanctuary". Around the lake area eleven village tracts with 38 villages consists with a little more than 50,000 population. However, the socio-economic development of the area is hampered by the protracted unstable political situation and by factors caused by its peripheral location. These factors resulted in poor administrative structures and infrastructure deficits. At the same time the local population, depending heavily on the natural resources, is facing mounting challenges, some of which are internal, others also externally influenced, such as an increasing population (partly due to in-migration) and the rising exploitation of natural resources. Deficits in handling environmental issues are evident. In general, research on the potentials of the area is absent.These facts and the growing importance of a sustainable development in today's globalized world have led to apply the concept of endogenous development as intellectual base for this study. The research aim -finding out the potentials of the area and discussing possible development paths -can be subdivided into three objectives: 1) investigating the present socioeconomic conditions (demographic, social, infrastructure, economic, governance and conservation aspects) of the Indawgyi Lake Area; 2) investigating how the local people evaluate the current situation and the future development; 3) based on the results, identifying and discussing the potentials of the region for future development in detail. Especially solutions for current critical aspects and future threats are discussed, as well as ideas for ways and means to develop eco-tourism in the area.The empirical work was conducted in two phases in 2014 and 2015 using a mixed method approach. The quantitative primary data were collected applying a questionnaire for a total of 216 households in ten villages around the Indawgyi Lake. These data were analysed using SPSS. To get qualitative data altogether 54 experts were interviewed and field observation and participant observation methods were applied. The interview data were analysed using MAXQDA. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analyses were combined by triangulation and interpreted based on the SWOT concept.Main economic activities are agriculture, fishery and gold mining. One of the current challenges of the agricultural sector is a sub-optimal land use management (e.g. monoculture cropping systems). Challenges of the fishery sector are overfishing, ignoring the closed season and practicing illegal fishing methods. the In the gold mining sector visible and invisible impacts can be mentioned as current and future threats. For instance, sedimentation can be observed in the lake. Other visible threats like drug use and health problems are predominant i...

Resilience has become important in disaster preparedness and response. Unfortunately, little is known about resilience at the household level. This study presents the results of a survey into individual and household level preparedness to disaster events in Yangon, Myanmar, which is prone to natural disasters such as tropical cyclones, flooding, and earthquakes. The study aimed to understand societal resilience and to provide information that could be used to develop a holistic framework. In four different Yangon townships, 440 households were interviewed. The results of the survey indicate how risk preparedness could be improved by specific measures related to the following five factors: 1) increasing the general public’s knowledge of first-aid and its role in preparedness; 2) improving mobile phone infrastructure so that it can be used for communication during disasters, along with building up a redundant communication structure; 3) better use and organisation of volunteer potential; 4) more specific involvement of religious and public buildings for disaster response; and 5) developing specific measures for improving preparedness in urban areas, where the population often has reduced capacities for coping with food supply insufficiencies due to the high and immediate availability of food, shops and goods in regular times. The findings of this survey have led to specific recommendations for Yangon. The identified measures represent a first step in developing a more general framework. Future research could investigate the transferability of these measures to other areas and thus their suitability as a basis for a framework.

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