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"Amber hunters" in search of a discovery of the Jurassic Park-style dinosaur sift through mounds of precious resin in Myanmar – a lucrative business that captivates paleontologists but also fuels a conflict several decades in the Far North.
The morning amber market on the outskirts of Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, is filled with merchants who use torches and magnifying glasses to scrutinize pieces of honey-colored fossil sap .
Some sell uncut pieces with raw edges. Others sell finished products: pendants, necklaces and bracelets made from carefully polished pieces.
Trade takes place a few dozen kilometers from fighting between the Myanmar Army and ethnic Kachin rebels fighting for autonomy, land, identity and natural resources.
The jade and ruby industries overshadow the essentially artisanal trade in amber, but resin can still bring large sums of money to those who control the mines.
In the Myitkyina market there is money to be made, says trader Myo Swe.
His specialty is the "inclusions", sap that traps parts of plants, animals and even dinosaurs before hardening into amber.
Find the right buyer and he could pocket up to $ 100,000 in a shady industry that sees most of the amber smuggled to China
"Even though he contains only an ant or a mosquito, each piece is, "told AFP a 40-year-old man. "I value each one of them."
Dinosaur Tales
Amber, historically coveted as jewelry by the nobility of China to ancient Greece, has experienced a revival in popular culture through the successful film of the 1990s "Jurassic Park", in a theme park where dinosaurs were cloned by extracting DNA from the mosquitoes preserved in the resin.
However, most amber announce not Jurassic but Upper Cretaceous, up to 100 million years ago.
The best-preserved "inclusions" offer today's scientists and collectors a three-dimensional fossil, with some creatures even frozen at mid-movement.
Amber deposits are found all over the world but, for paleontology, the Kachin mines are "irreplaceable," says Lida Xing, 36, of the Chinese University of Geosciences Beijing [19659005] "The amber mining area of Kachin is the only Cretaceous amber mining site in the world still operating in the commercial mining sector." It is ays. "There is no better place than Myanmar."
Lida Xing enjoyed fame among his paleontologist colleagues in 2015 when he brought back a part of a 99-million-year-old feathered dinosaur tail from Myanmar. his discovery, however, was tinged with disappointment when he returned to try to find the source.
"They said that they did not know, they probably had already sold or broken it." This dinosaur could have even been complete with a head, "he told AFP in Beijing
" Amber Conflict "
Lovers of amber hunters, the main challenge for traders and collectors is to work in a conflict zone
.Fights between the army and the army of Kachin independence (KIA) in recent years have more than 100,000 displaced people in the region.
Pamphlets dropped by army helicopters last June even warned people living around the mines to leave the area or to be considered as cooperating with the rebels, according to Human Rights Watch
to go there
"We could almost not reach the mining area because it was very dangerous," says Lida Xing about her trip to 2015. "We infiltrated when the situation is much less but no scientist could enter after that. "
" This is a serious problem because, for paleontology, you get a lot of useful information from geological and strata conditions – but we were not able to do it. "
Amber, jade, wood and gold are also" key drivers "of the conflict in northern Myanmar, says Hanna Hindstrom of the Global Witness monitoring group. Any company that markets Myanmar's amber "could cause or contribute to a whole range of damage, including conflict and human rights violations," she adds
Akbar Khan , 52 years old "running a street stall in downtown Bangkok avoids the risks and ethical issues.
He makes frequent visits to Kachin and explains the adrenaline rush that he gets by finding parts of dinosaurs. "Walk in the clouds, to paradise" he says.
"If people have a big diamond, so what? The world is full of big diamonds … but the world is not full of dinosaurs in amber. "
Learn more:
Small paragliding beetle that lived with dinosaurs discovered in amber, named "Jason"
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