Article Series: Indochina in the Anthropocene

[UngulateNerd92]

Where the Wild Things Were: Vietnam

This is the first installment of the author's “Indochina in the Anthropocene” series, which narrates the environmental crisis in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam is in a national species extinction crisis and has been for a long time, according to 2014 research by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Elephants are down to about 60 animals, tigers are almost certainly extinct, the giant ibis might already be gone.

The IUCN journal CATnews said in 2014 that the Javan rhinoceros, Kouprey, Hog deer and Bengal florican were driven to extinction during the late 20th century of military and political upheaval. Other species perilously close to being gone include the Asian elephant, Giant ibis, and Tiger. Vietnam is located in what biologists refer to as the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot and has a high rate of endemism, of species unique to defined geographic locations

It wasn’t always like this. Near the middle of the 20th century, before the outbreak of wars that lasted over the next three decades, Vietnam was considered by many hunters one of the best places for big game in Asia. Colonel Charles Askins in 1959, on the eve of decades of destruction, called it “one of the best game lands on the face of the earth.” So vast and unexplored was Vietnam’s wilderness that wildlife sightings weren’t limited to the confirmed zoological realm.

Where the Wild Things Were: Vietnam

 

[UngulateNerd92]

Laos: Asia’s ‘Battery’ Powers its Own Extinction Crisis

This is the second installment of the author's “Indochina in the Anthropocene” series which narrates the environmental crisis in Southeast Asia.

For Laos, the sparsely-populated land-locked Southeast Asian nation hemmed in by China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, “becoming Asia’s Battery” means damming all its rivers, in most cases multiple times, and exporting the electricity to its stronger, wealthier neighbors, come what may to the natural ecology and to the people who depend on those rivers for transportation and food.

The Mekong River Commission has in the past tried with virtually no success to get Laos to slow its dam-building spree and to reconsider some of the projects, particularly the Xayabury Dam, the first on the lower Mekong and which is believed to eventually be the most environmentally destructive of all Lao dams. Yet more dams are under construction on Laos’ stretch of the Mekong, with cement blockades going up at Pakbeng and at Don Sahong near the Si Phan Don waterfalls practically right on the Cambodian border.

Less attention has been given to the Mekong tributary dams, which are going up on the Nam Ou River (a cascade of seven dams that now have ended river cruises in a stunning canyonin the north), the Sekong River and Xe Pian dams in the south, the Nam Theun in central Laos—and on tributaries of those rivers as well. This is an abbreviated list.

Laos: Asia’s ‘Battery’ Powers its Own Extinction Crisis

 

[UngulateNerd92]

Cambodia: Last Hope for Indochina, or on its Last Breath?

This is the third installment of the author's “Indochina in the Anthropocene” series, which narrates the environmental crisis in Southeast Asia.

Cambodia, which contains within its borders some of Southeast Asia’s most important virgin forest, is under attack. Nowhere is that illustrated more dishearteningly than the Phnom Tnout district in the northern part of the country, where an American-Australian couple run an ecotourism outpost called Betreed Adventures

But ecotourism, it seems, can’t satisfy everyone quickly enough. Local villagers living on the outskirts of the Phnom Tnout forest began petitioning to have Ben and Sharyn Davis, the couple who run Betreed, and their family evicted to enable the locals to cut the forest down to plant more crops. The petition-gathering back in April began to look a bit rowdy, with tensions beginning to spill over, and things have got progressively worse in the months since.

I recently corresponded with Ben Davis, who described the current situation as “pretty much in an open war with the loggers and poachers. We got chased by loggers last week. Ran us nearly a mile before they caught up and ended up hurling their knives and axes at us. Haven't been that worried in a long time.” As someone who thoroughly enjoyed the natural tranquility of Phnom Tnout and their hospitality, this comes as a shock, even to a semi-jaded environmentalist.

Cambodia: Last Hope for Indochina, or on its Last Breath?

 

[UngulateNerd92]

Thailand: Southeast Asia’s Last Hope for Wildlife?

This is the fourth installment of the author's “Indochina in the Anthropocene” series, which narrates the environmental crisis in Southeast Asia.

With wildlife populations in Indochina in rapid decline, Thailand is the last great hope for the region’s natural heritage, particularly for large carnivores such as tigers and leopards. In fact, many donor organizations feel that Thailand has already achieved mid-level development status, making it more difficult for conservation groups to secure funding for projects there than it is for endeavors in its less-wealthy neighbors such as Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar.

Likewise, many noted conservationists have, over the years, chosen to concentrate their efforts in the “new” or “final frontiers” of Myanmar (more recently) and Laos and Cambodia in the 1990s because conservation in Thailand has already been established and its neighbors were wilder and sexier.

How much wisdom was there in this thinking and what was the outcome? The first and only time I ever heard a tiger roar was in eastern Thailand (I don’t want to name the park) in 2013. It was during the rainy season and footprints were everywhere on the trails: tiger, elephant—tiger inside of elephant—bear, dhole, you name it. Pileated gibbons cried out from the hills, flocks hornbills swooshed overhead, and large monitor lizards scurried across the old and overgrown access road. This, I felt, is what a Southeast Asian national park should look and feel like.

Thailand’s Department of National Parks has, with the help of the extraordinary NGO Freeland, fought hard to preserve this ecosystem, and the results have been amazing. It shows that if wildlife is given some respite from poaching, logging, and economic development schemes that it can and will rebound and recover.

Thailand’s Western Forest Complex can boast of even more wildlife. More than a dozen protected areas cobble together in an 18,730 km2 jigsaw puzzle to house the greatest density of tigers in Mainland Southeast Asia. This this region is also home to Malayan tapir, Indochinese leopards (including melanistic black leopards), gaur, herds of elephants, and even a tropical yeti, which goes by the local name of tua yea, which, interestingly, means “the prey” in Thai. And all of this—both the Eastern and Western forest complexes – is within a few hours’ drive of Bangkok. It might seem that the donors and conservationists who opted for Indochina and Myanmar were correct: Thailand has it all under control, and conservation funds are put to use better next door.

Thailand: Southeast Asia’s Last Hope for Wildlife?

 

[UngulateNerd92]

@Haliaeetus having liked my thread presenting a documentary series entitled "Wildest Indochina" (Documentary Series: Wildest Indochina), you might appreciate this thread presenting the article series, "Indochina in the Anthropocene."