Southeast Asia is known for its vast rainforests which constitute about almost 20 percent of forest cover with the richest biodiversity in the world. What the region is also known for is its alarming rate of deforestation.
Southeast Asia has the highest rate of deforestation of any major tropical region followed by Latin America and Africa. It is projected that the region has already lost more than 50 percent of its original forest cover and that some of the primary rainforests in the region will be lost by the year 2022 along with the loss of wildlife habitats. Deforestation is a major problem in the region with Indonesia leading the charts for forests clearing, followed by other hotspots such as Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
