Continental South and South East Asia
This region includes 20 different forest types (Map 1), including disturbed types and plantations. Pakistan has very sparse forest cover, showing some concentration in the north east. Bangladesh only has mangroves, and the Jamuna and Ganges basins that form the Bangladesh delta lands show little forest cover up into Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Assam. A fair amount of deciduous forest occurs in central India and these are mixed with other forest types in the Western Ghats. Northern and south eastern Sri Lanka are forested. Much of the Himalayan region shows forest cover but in Nepal in particular these are disturbed forests. More massive tracts of forest land occur in Myanmar although these are mainly absent from the lowlands of the Irrawaddy plain. Forests in Thailand are concentrated mostly in the north, but there are some large patches in the south east which lie within protected areas (Map 1). Much of Laos and Cambodia area forested, but the much of the forest area in Laos is disturbed. In comparison to Laos and Cambodia, Vietnam appears much less forested, particularly in the south. Peninsular Malaysia supports much forest inland, and there is a large swamp forest near Pekan on the east coast.
There were nine ecological zones in the region, depicted on Map 2 . The lowland sub-dry zone covered much of India, Thailand and Cambodia, and a comparison of Map 1 with Map 2 shows that this zone supported mainly deciduous/semi-deciduous broadleaf forests. The zone pattern for Pakistan and western India was different from the rest of the region, with dry ecological zones predominating. In contrast the Western Ghats , west-central Sri Lanka and a long stretch from the tip of peninsular Malaysia through the isthmus part of Thailand, through Myanmar up to the north east of Assam was in the lowland very moist zone.
Although more sparsely forested than other countries in the region, due to its size India supported the greatest area of forests (Fig. 2, Table 1). Myanmar, even though it is much smaller than India supported more than 75% of the amount in that country. Myanmar in turn supported more than twice the amount of forest in Cambodia, the country with the next largest figure for forest cover (Table 1). Bangladesh had the least amount of forests of all countries, and along with Pakistan only about 5% protected. Myanmar had the lowest percentage of forest protected at 1.2% (Fig. 2), Thailand had the highest percentage of protected forest , with Sri Lanka and Cambodia fairly close behind (Fig. 2). Eight countries had ten or more percent protected (this includes Myanmar at 9.9%), four countries had less.
Deciduous/semi-deciduous broadleaf forest was by far the most abundant forest type in the region (Fig. 1, Table 2), being only absent from peninsular Malaysia and Pakistan. This includes monsoon forests. The two next most abundant types were semi-evergreen moist broadleaf forest and tropical disturbed natural forest. Of these three the latter has the lowest percentage protected. Plantation forests were confined in the dataset to Sri Lanka and Laos (Table 2). In both countries the exotic plantations were protected to some degree, which indicates that the IUCN categories assigned to these areas should be altered. Of the non-tropical types evergreen needleleaf forest was the most abundant, most of this being in India and Myanmar (Fig. 1, Table 2). These were located in the Himalayan region (Map 1).
The forest types with the least percentage protected were non-tropical mixed needleleaf/broadleaf forest and non-tropical freshwater swamp forest (Fig. 1). Of the tropical types sclerophyllous dry forest had the lowest percent protected as well as the lowest total figure. In the whole region the highest percentage protection figure was 22% (tropical freshwater swamp forest) This was present and protected in three countries, but only minimally protected in Thailand (Table 2). Twelve of the 20 forest types in the region have a percentage protection of 10% or more. Intact natural forests which only occurred in one country were tropical needleleaf forest (Vietnam), tropical sparse trees and parkland (Sri Lanka), tropical sclerophyllous dry forest (India) and non-tropical freshwater swamp forest (Pakistan) (Table 2). Of these only the former two had more than 10% of their area protected.
Three zones contained between 400 000 and 500 000 km² of forest: these were the wetter lowland zones (Fig.3, Table 3). The premontane moist zone supported between 250 000 and 300 000 km², more than twice the next greatest figure. Seven of the eight zones had more than 10% of the forests protected (Fig. 3). This does not include the figures for the excluded forest zone, which contained more forest than four of the other zones. This includes forest areas which have not been allocated an ecological zone, such as those which extend into the sea or where the boundaries of lakes or coastlines differ. Of the forest types which only occur in one country with very little protection, the tropical sclerophyllous dry forest occurs in only one ecological zone, but the other, non-tropical freshwater swamp forest, occurs in three, and is only protected in one (Table 3). It is possible that the forests differ ecologically from zone to zone, and this should be taken into consideration when planning protected areas.
In an attempt to impartially indicate natural, undisturbed forest variants which may be under the most immediate threat of destruction, a list was drawn up that pinpointed those under 100 km2 in extent with none protected. These are variants of relatively limited extent and which do not even have any legal protection; possibly much less actual protection. Some of these forest variants may indeed be truly rare and unprotected types, others are clearly fragments of forest at the end of their ranges, as for example certain types of dry forest should not normally occur in moist ecological zones, or vice versa. An in-depth analysis of these forest variants is outside the scope of this study. There were 6 of the 76 variants in Continental South and South East Asia that met these criteria, and these are listed below (T=tropical forest type, N=non-tropical forest type):
Of the nine ecological zones in this region two were only 1% forested (Table 4). These were arid/desertic zones that would not naturally support much forest. The alpine zone, which included much of the Himalayas, was 6% forested, and the montane dry zone along the west border of Pakistan was similarly forested at 7%. One percent of both of these zones was covered by protected forest. Although the premontane moist, lowland moist with long dry season and the lowland very moist zones were quite well forested, they were only four or five percent covered with protected forest.
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