This report is the first to chronicle the daily activities of a TSA team’s visit to four countries in Asia – Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia and Philippines - to design turtle facilities, develop conservation programs, and consult on turtle husbandry issues. The team is led by Rick Hudson and includes Lonnie McCaskill and Dave Manser. The team was met in Myanmar by Kalyar Platt and her father Nyunt Thein (a local retired civil engineer) in Yangon, Myanmar.  The mission in Myanmar is to begin designing and “costing out” turtle and tortoise facilities that were recommended at the January 2009 workshop. 

The Asian Turtle Program (ATP) of Cleveland Metroparks Zoo (CMZ) has worked since 1998 to promote tortoise and freshwater turtle (TFT) conservation through awareness, training and research activities.  The Mauremys annamensis Project (MAP) has focused on this critically endangered and endemic species in central Vietnam with a permanent field presence since 2007.  MAP activities have included surveys, community meetings and wildlife protection department training in key areas.  With the threats to this species now fully realised, it received full protection in 2006 under Vietnam’s principal wildlife protection law, Decree 32.