Clearance of Tropical Mountain Forests in Southeast Asia Expanding, Accelerating, Says Study
Voice of America
New research has found that the tropical forests in the mountains of Southeast Asia are losing trees at an accelerated rate, deepening a wide range of ecological concerns.
Southeast Asia is home to about 15% of the world’s tropical forests and help sustain plant and animal biodiversity. The trees also store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it would further contribute to warming global temperatures. But clearing the forests of trees has reduced the ecosystem’s capacity for carbon storage, according to a study recently published in Nature Sustainability. In many parts of the world, people have cleared out forests to make space for subsistence agriculture and cash crops. In Southeast Asia, illegal logging is also responsible for a huge amount of deforestation. As forests shrink, their ability to counteract human carbon emissions dwindles.Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. Fire rages following an Israeli strike on an area designated for displaced Palestinians, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in this still picture taken from a video, May 26, 2024. Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli strike on a camp for internally displaced people in Rafah on May 27, 2024. A member of the bomb squad of the Israeli police collects debris after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants struck in the Israeli city of Herzliya on May 26, 2024.
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili, right, and Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, left, leave a podium after marking Independence Day in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024. Demonstrators with Georgian national and EU flags rally during an opposition protest against a foreign influence bill as they mark their country's Independence Day, in the center of in Tbilisi, Georgia, May 26, 2024.