Asia's Forest Bird Crisis

Forests in Asia are in crisis, attacked by rampant logging and clearance for agriculture and plantations. Nowhere is the crisis more immediate than in highly populated lowland areas such as on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia, where the World Bank recently predicted that 100% of lowland forest will have been destroyed by 2005 if current rates of clearance continue.

M Lambertini/BirdLife Sumatran deforestation Zoom In

More than 75% of the 323 Globally Threatened Birds in Asia have been identified by BirdLife as forest-dependent, occurring in 52 distinct forest zones. Many of these birds have restricted ranges (smaller than 50,000 km²), and the forest zones therefore also closely relate to Endemic Bird Areas, as well as to Conservation International's 'Global Hotspots' and WWF's 'Ecoregions'. For instance, Sumatra's montane forests (together with those of peninsular Malaysia) form one of the most important Endemic Bird Areas on the planet, and this is reflected in the island's extraordinary level of overall biodiversity.

As part of its response to the forest crisis, the BirdLife Asia Partnership is currently developing a long-term strategy for conserving the threatened birds of Asia's forests and other habitats, based on the scientific and technical information collected for BirdLife's Asian Red Data Book (which covers the 323 Globally Threatened Birds in detail). The strategy will identify the conservation actions needed to prevent extinction and improve the status of the threatened birds in the region.

There are great variations between the forest zones in both the extent of protected areas and the resources allocated to their management, and the important gaps and imbalances need to be addressed. However, the future of the forest zones depends not only on the conservation of particular forested sites, as protected areas, but also on the development of regional and national forest policy that is focused on conservation of entire forest ecosystems in the wider environment, outside protected areas, where most people live and work.

Particular focus is needed on much better regulation and control of logging (both legal and illegal) and of plantation forestry (particularly timber and cash crops such as oil-palm), and on offering local and indigenous communities options for using natural resources sustainably, thus minimizing forest clearance for agriculture. Unsustainable forest-clearance in Asia provides the raw materials that go into many of the products that consumers around the world buy – e.g. furniture, timber, fibre, paper, foods and cosmetics – and many respected banks and multinational companies willingly finance and partake in this trade. There is a need for consumer awareness campaigns, and for banks, companies and investors to commit to sustainable production. European markets are a major destination for the products of Asia's ravaged forest ecosystems, and the BirdLife European Partnership aim to address these issues with a coordinated advocacy response in 2003.