Southeast Asia

The study highlights the region’s major issues that continue to allow illegal trade to thrive including the existence of organised criminal networks moving wildlife contraband, poor conviction rates, inadequate laws, and poor regulation of markets and retail outlets... the statistics, though remarkable, comprised only seizures and was just a fraction of the true magnitude of illegal wildlife trade in the region... The seizure of about 225,000 kg of African Elephant Loxodonta africana ivory... The trafficking of an estimated 895,000 pangolins... The seizure of 100,000 Pig-nosed Turtles... Over 45,000 songbirds seized in just Sumatra and Java... Over 6,000 Indian Star Tortoises... Over 3,800 bear equivalents seized in Asia, implicating almost all Southeast Asian countries...

Two new calves have been spotted in Ujung Kulon National Park, bringing the Javan rhino population up to 74...The species has grown by almost 50% since 2010, when there were only 50 Javan rhinos left.

Southeast Asia potentially will face more severe consequences of climate change than other parts of the world... The research outlines the scope of potential impact climate change may have on Southeast Asian nations and South Asia countries, including Bangladesh, India and Pakistan... Asia as a region faces hazards including flooding, drought, severe typhoons as well as conditions of rising heat and humidity.

“WWF Malaysia has led a project in Borneo to stop the loss of orangutan habitat, whilst helping the wellbeing of the communities that live there too... By planting Gaharu trees and harvesting the leaves, degraded land can be transformed into healthy agricultural land that compliments the rainforest. This gives a real incentive for local communities not to cut trees down, as it would be their primary source of income. As a result, orangutan habitat can be protected...”

“In Southeast Asia: Jakarta and Hanoi are Southeast Asia’s two most polluted cities. With Beijing’s air quality getting better, Jakarta risks overtaking China’s famously polluted capital soon... Air pollution will take an estimated seven million lives globally in the next year, while costing the world’s economy nearly 225 billion USD... Climate change is making the effects of air pollution worse by changing atmospheric conditions and amplifying forest fires. In addition, the key driver of climate change — burning fossil fuels — is also the main driver of air pollution, globally...”

Teak (Tectona grandis) is a tropical tree species native to South and Southeast Asia. Its wood is used to make high-end furniture and is favored for making boat decks because it is highly durable... growing global demand for timber, poor enforcement of laws, and conflicts in border areas have led to significant illegal logging and overharvesting in the country, driving deforestation, especially in teak-rich natural forests. Myanmar lost 3.38 million hectares (over 13,000 square miles) of tree cover between 2001 and 2018... The Bago mountain range in south-central Myanmar is known as the “home of teak,” but has, over the years, emerged as a hub for illegal logging... A study... found that forest area had declined by over 40% between 2000 and 2017. Despite a 10-year logging ban in place since 2016.

”Indonesia is the leading global producer of crude palm oil. Mass production of palm oil requires large-scale land conversion, resulting in Indonesia having the world’s highest rate of annual primary forest loss… In 2017, palm oil production required approximately 12 million hectares of land (an area the size of North Korea) to produce 38 million tons of palm oil.”

“The Tonlé Sap is in trouble — from overfishing to feed a fast-growing population, from the cutting of mangrove forests that shelter young fish, from hydroelectric dams upstream, and from the dry seasons that are expected to grow hotter and longer with climate change...Now an international team of researchers has joined local fishermen in an ambitious project to save the Tonlé Sap. The scientists are building an intricate computer model that aims to track the vast array of connections between human activity and natural systems as they change over time. Begun in 2012...the hope is to peer into the lake’s future to predict how different developmental, economic and regulatory choices may ripple through this interconnected and fast-changing ecosystem, and to plan a sustainable way forward.”

Buddhist monks, community mobilizers, youth and various organizations rallied together against a backdrop of boats bearing banners asking to stop construction of the Don Sahong dam on the Mekong River, only a mile upstream from the core habitat of the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin. “Irrawaddy dolphins are found in coastal areas in South and Southeast Asia, and in three rivers: the Ayeyarwady (Myanmar), the Mahakam (Indonesian Borneo) and the Mekong... The protection of the Irrawaddy dolphin is crucial for the overall health of the Mekong River—home to an estimated 1,100 species of fish.” Despite widespread protests, the Don Sahong Power Project began operations in 2020.

With 25 million people in its path, Super Typhoon Haiyan, one of the strongest storms recorded on the planet, smashed into the Philippines with sustained winds of 315 kph (195 mph) and gusts as strong as 380 kph (235 mph). The storm’s surge swept away small villages and displaced more than 650,000 people..

Large dikes built in the 1990s and early 2000s allowed farmers to plant more rice on the same acreage. “They enable year-round rice cultivation in an area where, a half century ago, vast floodplains typically lay fallow for half the year and farmers planted one annual rice crop that grew in tandem with seasonal floods....But scientists say that the ongoing construction of dikes and irrigation infrastructure across the Mekong Delta and along the country’s South China Sea coastline has disrupted the river delta’s complex ecological systems.... Along Vietnam’s southern coast, sluice gates and dikes — built to enable freshwater rice farming and prevent the upstream movement of saline water during the dry season — have restricted the transfer of organic material between freshwater and saline aquatic environments. That has... threaten[ed] large swaths of coastal mangroves as shoreline dikes interrupt a balanced flow of fresh- and saltwater-based nutrients. Scientists say if the mangroves die, Vietnam would be even more vulnerable to intensifying storms and rising sea levels linked to climate change.”

In 2012, the Sumatran elephant was changed from ‘Endangered’ to ‘Critically Endangered’ because half of its population has been lost in one generation—a decline that is largely due to habitat loss and as a result human-elephant conflict... In Sumatra’s Riau province, pulp and paper industries and oil palm plantations have caused some of the world’s most rapid rates of deforestation. Elephant numbers have declined by a staggering 80 percent in less than 25 years, confining some herds to small forest patches.

Javan rhinos are the most threatened of the five rhino species, with as few as 35 individuals surviving in Ujung Kulon National Park in Java, Indonesia. Vietnam’s last Javan rhino was poached in 2010

Cyclone Nargis, swept along by winds that exceeded 190 kmh and waves six meters high struck the Burmese peninsula and may have left as many as 100,000 dead, according to U.S. estimates.