EAST AND SOUTHEAST ASIA

As a whole the Asia-Pacific region contains 17 percent of the world's remaining forests, but has lost 88 percent of its original frontier forest area. The East Asian region alone contains six per cent of the world's forests and has global significance in terms of biodiversity.

These forests have been decimated by unconstrained logging, much of it illegal, over the last two decades. Current patterns of forest exploitation in the region threaten ecological security, biodiversity, and the livelihoods of millions of people who live in the remaining forest areas. In the Philippines 16 million hectares of natural forest have been reduced to just 700,000 hectares, with illegal logging causing much of the destruction.

Illegal logging in Asia appears to be a regional problem, which is unlikely be adequately addressed at the national level. Much of the illicit timber flows across porous borders, where neighbouring states often legitimise the timber by issuing paperwork to mask its true origin. Smuggling has also been documented across the region - from Indonesia to Malaysia, Singapore and China, from Cambodia to Thailand and Vietnam, and from Myanmar (Burma) to China.

Click on the links below to see full document sets for that country.

Sub sections:

• ASEAN
• Brunei
• Cambodia
• China
• Hong Kong
• Indonesia
• Japan
• Laos
• Malaysia
• Mongolia
• Myanmar (Burma)
• North Korea
• Philippines
• Singapore
• South Korea
• Taiwan
• Thailand
• Vietnam

DOCUMENTS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
01/04/2012	Forests for a Greener Future: Forest Policy Brief With only 0.2 hectares of forest per person, the Asia-Pacific region is, per capita, the least forested ...	Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study, FAO
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01/04/2012	The Forest Biodiversity Challenge: Forest Policy Brief Most of the terrestrial biodiversity within the Asia-Pacific region is contained within forests. Protected ...	Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study, FAO
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01/04/2012	Better Governance, Better Forestry: Forest Policy Brief With pressure growing on natural resources in the Asia-Pacific region, good governance is becoming increasingly ...	Asia-Pacific Forestry Sector Outlook Study, FAO
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07/11/2011	The Bali Declaration Ten Years On In September 2001, Ministers from the East Asia Region attending the Forest Law Enforcement and Governance ...	EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency)
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NEWS

DATE	TITLE	AUTHOR
16/04/2013	Why action on forests now is essential to all our futures Saving forests offers a new route to alleviating hunger and malnutrition, promoting development and tackling ...	Bharrat Jagdeo for The Guardian
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25/02/2013	UN-REDD launches guidelines on FPIC The UN-REDD Programme recently launched the UN-REDD Programme Guidelines on Free, Prior and Informed ...	Forest Carbon Asia
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11/10/2004	Asian nations launch regional plan to smash wildlife smuggling rings Southeast Asian nations on Monday unveiled their first coordinated effort to crack down on the regions ...	Terra Daily
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