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Southeast Asian Archipelago

Challenges

The Southeast Asian Archipelago is experiencing deforestation rates higher than almost anywhere else on Earth. The region's forests are endangered by conversion to agriculture or other land uses (such as oil palm plantations), logging (both legal and illegal), and the impacts of climate change. Wildlife is highly threatened by habitat loss, poaching, and the illegal wildlife trade. Marine ecosystems are being degraded through illegal and unsustainable fishing techniques, climate change, which contributes to coral bleaching, and tropical deforestation, which causes soil erosion and impacts water quality. Annual fires across the region, linked to the clearance of forests for agriculture and exacerbated by climatic events such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, cause significant regional air pollution that has serious negative impacts on human health and results in billions of dollars of economic damage to Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore.

Our Goal

Maintain representative ecosystems of this globally irreplaceable biodiversity, focusing on both marine and terrestrial systems, while safeguarding some of the last remaining populations of Southeast Asia's most iconic biodiversity—rhinos, tigers, elephants, orangutans, Wallacea's unique endemic species (anoas, babirusas, and maleos) and manta rays.

What's At Stake?

The Leuser Ecosystem, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, is the last place on earth where rhinos, tigers, elephants, and orangutans coexist. Offshore, the Coral Triangle is the global center of marine biodiversity, supporting 75% of the world's coral species, 40% of all reef fish species, and six of seven turtle species. These marine resources support the livelihoods of over 120 million people from an incredible array of local cultures. Over 2,000 languages are spoken across the region.

Read more:
WCS Indonesia
WCS Malaysia