Saving S-E Asia's trees requires action on climate, land use: Study

Region's forests facing 'double whammy' of threats from climate change, deforestation

- Audrey Tan

Audrey Tan Assistant News Editor Stocked full of plants that produce aromatic resins, bark that can be used to make cloth and all manner of herbs and spices, South-east Asia's vast forests throng with plant life that both humans and animals rely on.

But a study has found that the region's leafy apothecaries are facing a "double whammy" of threats from climate change and deforestation.

The trees across all forest types in the region are projected to suffer severe losses by 2090 in three of four scenarios modelled in the study.

The trend of decline be stopped and reversed, so tree cover in the region increases instead, only in the scenario where policies to address both climate change and land use change are enacted.

This scenario also helps to reduce the threat of extinction for many species.

Said the study's lead author Sean Pang: "Policymakers must recognise that addressing both climate and land use change is crucial for protecting the fate of South-east Asia's trees, and likely for much of the region's biodiversity."

The study, done as part of Dr Pang's doctoral dissertation at the National University of Singapore, was published on Aug 27 in scientific journal Nature Sustainability.

Protecting nature and taking climate action to reduce the release of planet-warming emissions into the atmosphere have often been treated as separate issues.

But there is a growing body of research that emphasises the interconnectedness of the climate and nature crises, and the importance of addressing both holistically.

"It is hard to say if climate change or land use change is the bigger threat," said Dr Pang, now a postdoctoral fellow at the Aarhus University in Denmark.

One interesting finding of the study was that different tree groups responded to the two changes differently.