The Role of Animals in Forest Regeneration and the Economics of Rain Forest Conservation in South-east Asia

The evergreen rain forests of south-east Asia are an ancient and invaluable resource nature's complex answer to relatively poor soils. Their rapid clearance, because of intense international, as well as local, pressures, is depriving the region of substantial long-term income and is seriously disrupting the environment through flooding, soil erosion and climatic change and threatening the welfare of people and their economies. The solution lies in the long-term protection of key areas such as watersheds and the management of extensive buffer zones for sustained yields of all kinds of animal and plant products (many of which are still undiscovered), involving at least 40% of the land areas of the countries involved.