Massive Mekong Floods Blamed on Deforestation
09/25/00
OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY
by Forests.org
In a major condemnation of widespread logging and other forest clearing that continues to occur across Asia, the United Nations has released a statement that indicates that deforestation is a major cause of the floods that have devastated Indochina and the Mekong delta. Heavy rains in the past month have killed hundreds of people and forced more than a million others from their homes in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. It is becoming increasingly clear that the costs of logging, plantations and other forest clearance activities include severe declines in ecosystem functions such as flood control, climate stabilization, soil maintenance and others. The costs associated with permanent ecosystem decline far outweigh the short-term economic gains to be made from liquidating the few remaining primary forest ecosystems. The need for immediate policy to end deforestation and forest decline can be made on a number of criteria, including long-term comprehensive cost/benefit analysis and ecological requirements for ecosystem sustainability. The point at which it will be too late to save large and operable regional forest ecosystems adequate to fuel planetary ecological functioning is fast approaching. Now is the time to demand that all governments immediately stop the logging of ancient primary forest habitats and the consumption of old-growth forest products within their borders, and actively engage in making this so worldwide. We must make this happen, for the benefit of humankind and all species.
g.b.
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UN agency blames Mekong floods on deforestation
Copyright 2000, Reuters
September 25, 2000
BANGKOK - A United Nations agency said on Friday deforestation was a major cause of the floods that have devastated Indochina and the Mekong delta in the last month.
The UN's Economic & Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) said in a statement forests in most Asian countries had been reduced to about 25 percent of land area in 1995 from 70 percent in 1945.
Other causes of the floods were a reduction in river channels and drainage, reclamation of flood plains and wetlands and a rapid expansion of urban and residential areas, ESCAP said.
Heavy rain in the past month across Indochina and the Mekong delta have killed hundreds of people and forced more than a million others from their homes in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Thailand.
Water levels in Vietnam's Mekong Delta appeared to be stabilising on Friday but the toll in the region's worst floods in decades rose to at least 66, mostly children.
The Laotian Ministry of Agriculture said the flooding, the worst in the country since 1978, had affected 18,423 families and damaged 48,724 hectares (120,395 acres) of farmland nationwide.
Flood waters that have caused misery in northern and northeastern Thailand have begun to spill into the country's central plains, reaching Ayutthaya, just 76 km (47 miles) north of Bangkok, officials said on Friday.
Concerns have been raised over the safety of the Ayutthaya World Heritage site, comprising ancient palaces, ruins and temples, some of which were damaged by floods in 1995.
A two-metre (6.6 feet) concrete flood wall was being built on the banks of the Chao Phrya river to protect the historic city from floods.
ESCAP said the intensity of flood disasters had increased in the region during the past few years, causing increasingly serious social and economic impact on the developing nations.
An ESCAP regional survey showed the floods in 1998 caused nearly 7,000 deaths, damaged more than six million houses, and destroyed nearly 25 million hectares (61.8 million acres) of crops in Bangladesh, China, India and Vietnam.