Myanmar has created the world's biggest tiger sanctuary by more than tripling an area designated as a reserve for the endangered big cats, according to conservationists.Photo: A Bengal tigress Noah Noah plays with its newly born cub in Myanmar's Yangon Zoological Gardens in 2005. Myanmar has created the world's biggest tiger sanctuary by more than tripling an area designated as a reserve for the endangered big cats, according to conservationists.

Thu Aug 5, 11:16 AM ET

BANGKOK (AFP) – Myanmar has created the world's biggest tiger sanctuary by more than tripling an area designated as a reserve for the endangered big cats, according to conservationists.

The secretive military regime is believed to have set aside the entire Hukaung Valley, stretching around 8,450 square miles (21,970 square kilometres), to preserve the creatures.

The move is a "major step forward" in saving the world's wild tiger population, which is thought to have fallen as low as 3,000, wild cat group Panthera and the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement this week.

The groups said the valley had the potential to hold several hundred tigers, but added that illegal hunting of both the animals and their prey meant there could be as few as 50 in the region.

As many as 100,000 tigers prowled the forests and grasslands of Asia just a century ago, but numbers have slumped dangerously low mainly because of poaching and loss of habitat.

The Hukaung Valley is said to be one of the last examples of a closed forest in the region and the reserve could also protect other large mammals like clouded leopards and Asian elephants.

Panthera chief executive Alan Rabinowitz said the announcement builds on the designation of a 2,500 square mile (6,500 square kilometre) tiger sanctuary in the valley in 2004.

"This reserve is one of the most important stretches of tiger habitat in the world, and I am thrilled that the people and government of Myanmar understand the importance of preserving it," he said.

The statement said "many years of hard work" had gone into persuading local ethnic groups, recent settlers and local businesses to agree to the plan.

Conservationists are hopeful for the future of the animals.

The statement said "tigers can make a comeback" if hunting of the creatures and their prey is tackled "effectively and immediately".