Introduction to Tropical Rainforests in Southeast Asia

The Southeast Asian rainforests are the oldest, consistent rainforests on Earth, dating back to the Pleistocene Epoch 70 million years ago1. 23% of world’s tropical forest are located in four main countries in Southeast Asia, which include Indonesia, Malaysia, philippines, and Thailand2. Other countries in Southeast Asia that contain tropical rainforests include Bruinei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, and Vietnam3.

They are number of reasons that tropical forests are important to humankind. First of all, tropical forests are genetic storehouses of the planet, as the biodiversity in such places is unparallelled. Scientists estimate that more than half of all the world's plant and animal species live in tropical rainforests4. Additionally, the existence of tropical forests are vital to earth’s climate and atmosphere, as tropical rainforests produce 40% of Earth's oxygen5. Moreover, it was estimated that 40% of prescribed drugs in the United States originated from tropical forest flora6, and about 1/4 of all the medicines we use come from rainforest plants7.

Yet, worldwide, our planet is losing 100 acres of tropical forest every minute8. Southeast Asia, containing the world’s third largest tropical forests, is experiencing deforestation rates higher than almost anywhere else on Earth9, which is the primary reason we chose to study tropical rainforest in this region. Southeast Asia is losing its rainforests at a fast pace of 25000 square kilometers each year10, and has the fewest remaining primary rainforests11. It is projected that most of the primary rainforests of Southeast Asia will be destroyed in the next 10 years12. The scale of the destruction could potentially affect the entire human race negatively, as the potential change in climate and endangerment of species could haunt the human race in the long run.

In this blog, we primarily focus on tropical rainforests in Indonesia, Malaysia, philippines and Thailand. We first study the history of those area, and then delve into the current human impacts, future prospects, as well as ways to improve such area.