Thẻ: biodiversity

Protected areas hit hard as Mekong countries’ forest cover shrank in 2024

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

mongabay.com Gerald Flynn 6 Oct 2025Asia

  • The five Mekong countries lost nearly 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of tree cover in 2024, with nearly a quarter of which was primary forest, and more than 30% of losses occurring inside protected areas.
  • Cambodia and Laos saw some of the highest levels of loss inside protected areas, driven by logging, plantations and hydropower projects, though both countries recorded slight declines from 2023.
  • In Myanmar, conflict has complicated forest governance, with mining and displacement contributing to losses, though overall deforestation fell slightly compared to the previous year.
  • Thailand and Vietnam bucked the regional trend, with relatively low forest losses in protected areas, supported by logging bans, reforestation initiatives, and stricter law enforcement.

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BANGKOK — The Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam lost a combined area of tree cover of nearly a million hectares in 2024, or an area almost the size of Lebanon. That’s according to Mongabay’s analysis* of satellite data published by the Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) laboratory at the University of Maryland, in partnership with Global Forest Watch (GFW).

GFW data show 991,801 hectares (2.45 million acres) of tree cover were lost in 2024, including nearly 220,000 hectares (544,000 acres) of primary forest, across the five Mekong countries. More than 30% of tree cover loss recorded in 2024 occurred inside protected areas, although across the region, the rate of deforestation — both within protected areas and outside of them — slowed slightly from 2023. Despite this, the drivers of deforestation vary somewhat from country to country, and last year’s losses still reflect a grim trajectory for forests in the Mekong region.

The economies of almost all Mekong countries are heavily reliant on agriculture, with forests cleared for both agribusiness-run plantations or subsistence farming plots. But research indicates the conversion of forest to croplands has resulted in increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and subsequently poorer agricultural yields.

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Animals that spread seeds are critical for climate solutions

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

mongabay.com

  • New research analyzing more than 3,000 tropical forest sites reveals that areas with fewer seed-dispersing animals store up to four times less carbon than forests with healthy wildlife populations.
  • The study found that 81% of tropical trees rely on animals to disperse their seeds, establishing an ancient partnership now threatened by human activities such as deforestation, road construction, and hunting.
  • Researchers mapped global “seed dispersal disruption” and found it explains a 57% reduction in carbon storage potential across proposed forest restoration areas.

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‘Plenty of fish in the sea’? Not anymore

~ Đào Thu Hằng ~ Bình luận về bài viết này

UN.org

A report launched at the Third UN Ocean Conference, in Nice, shows that 35 per cent of the global fish stocks are being harvested unsustainably.

© The Ocean Story/Vincent Kneefel

A report launched at the Third UN Ocean Conference, in Nice, shows that 35 per cent of the global fish stocks are being harvested unsustainably.

By Fabrice Robinet, reporting from Nice  Climate and Environment

At the Third UN Ocean Conference in Nice, the “catch of the day” wasn’t a seabass or a red mullet – it was a figure: 35 per cent. That’s the share of global fish stocks now being harvested unsustainably, according to a new UN report released Wednesday.

https://x.com/UN_News_Centre/status/1932800237715783856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1932800237715783856%7Ctwgr%5Ed912305c5ff556ade0e29bacd77858c0403f520d%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.un.org%2Fen%2Fstory%2F2025%2F06%2F1164251

As yachts bobbed gently and delegates streamed by in a rising tide of lanyards and iPads at Port Lympia, Nice’s historic harbor, that statistic sent a ripple through the conference’s third day – a stark reminder that the world’s oceans are under growing pressure from overfishing, climate change and unsustainable management.

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