E XECUTIVE S UMMARY The Lao PDR is one of the most biodiversity countries in Southeast Asia, with on-going discoveries of new and large species. For example, 28 new species were discovered in 2014. The great range of biodiversity exists thanks to the Lao PDR’s abundance of forest and water resources, which cover the entire length of the country. National Protected Areas (NPAs) now cover 14.2 per cent of the country’s area, while this coverage of protected areas increases to around 20.2 per cent of the land area with the addition of Provincial Protected Areas and District Protected Areas.
Although the Lao PDR is still rich in natural resources, its biodiversity has been negatively impacted by developments, particularly resulting from private sector investment, including agricultural expansion, forest extraction, mining, as well as infrastructure and hydro dam construction. This report presents that, behind these direct drivers of biodiversity loss, there are a number of indirect drivers that interact in complex ways to cause human-induced changes in biodiversity which involve demographic, economic, socio-political, as well as cultural and religious factors. Of significance importance on the loss of biodiversity is deforestation.
Forests in the Lao PDR have seen a decrease from 17 million hectares (or 71.8% of the total land area) in 1940, to 9.55 million hectares (or 40.33% of the total land area) in 2010. Efforts to address deforestation and environmental degradation have focussed on protecting forests for sustainable ecosystem services, smallholder forestry projects, and participatory sustainable forest management. Community livelihoods are closely linked to forests and the participation of forest-dependent communities is consequently crucial for successful forest management. The government has been quick to realize the need to protect the country’s biodiversity, including its iconic wildlife species.
It has established a comprehensive national protected area system and enacted laws, decrees, directives, and regulations on the management of forest, aquatic, and wildlife resources across the country. The next challenge is to improve the enforcement of these laws, decrees, directives, and regulations. The Lao PDR’s First National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP) laid out an action plan to 2010 and strategy to 2020, which consisted of seven programmes; (1) Scientific Data and Biodiversity Knowledge Development; (2) Biodiversity Management; (3) Human Resource iii