Northern Myanmar is known as one of the most
important and biologically diverse regions
in Indo-china. The headwaters of major
rivers in Myanmar, a transition zone between
the tropical Indo-Malaysian fauna and flora
from the south and the temperate and alpine
Sino-Himalayan fauna and flora form the
north are contained in that area. Much of
northern extremities of Myanmar is a
sparsely populated, little-explored region
that is generally referred to as Icy
mountains-including the country’s highest
peak Mount Hkakaborazi estimated at 5881 m
high.
Hkakaborazi National Park is about 3812 sq
km (1472 sq miles) and the largest
National Park in Myanmar. Situated between
north latitude 24’-28’ and east longitude
97’-99’ in Nomung Township of Putao District
in the northern of Kachin State. It is
bounded by India in the west and buy China
in the north and east and the southern
boundary is demarcated along the Nam Tami
and Tarong rivers. It incorporates 11
villages with a population of 948. It was
designated as protected area in January 1996
and as a National Park in October 1998.
(Appendix I) A proposal was submitted for
upgrading Hkakaborazi National Park to the
status of a World Natural Heritage site to
the United Nations Educational, Scientific
and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The park
is entirely mountainous and is characterized
by broad-leaved evergreen rainforest,
sub-tropical and temperate, up to
2500-2750m, then broad leaved,
semi-deciduous forest, and needle-leaved
evergreen forest. Above 3,350m, alpine
forest is the highest forest zones.
Hkakaborazi region is recognized to be one
of the richest areas in the world in terms
of biological resources incorporating rare,
endangered and unknown and unrecorded flora
and fauna. Due to its unique biodiversity,
Hkakaborazi region is considered as Asiatic
centre of endemic and repository of origin
of the angiosperm flora.