Date: February 25, 2004
Written by: Denis Gray, The Associated Press
Shortened by: Magali Jurzik and Bertrand Rachex
Original posted at http://forests.org/articles/reader.asp?linkid=29738

VIENTIANE, Laos - The mighty animals that made Laos the "Kingdom of a Million Elephants" are mostly gone. And every year the forests that once covered the country from end to end are replaced by more bald hillsides and scrubland where hardly a birdsong is heard.

Laos' 5.6 million people still enjoy a high ratio of water and forest resources, including 800 bird and 100 mammal species ranging from endangered tigers to the recently discovered Saola and Giant Muntjak.

But conservationists are alarmed at what has been eradicated in less than a generation. They fear that minimal environmental programs and limited foreign aid have no chance to slow down the destruction. They argue that short-term profits from logging and other ventures will be a disaster in the long run.

"The only thing Laos can offer economically is its natural resources and biodiversity. That is its comparative advantage. If it loses that, it's done for," says Roland Eve, country director of the WWF.

Yet Laos is one of the world's poorest and least developed nations, and the pressure is intense to build electric dams and sell off tropical forests, legally or otherwise.

Traveling the 280-mile length of National Highway 13, which runs north-south through the heart of Laos, the only patches of viable forest are inside ravines or on mountain slopes too steep to log. During the dry season, smoke from woodlands cleared for farming cast a hazy shroud.

Forest cover has shrunk from 70% of Laos' total area in the middle of the 20th century to less than 40% today - and possibly far lower. Moreover, many types of woodland are described as "dead" due to over hunting.

Near the northern town of Oudomxai, a Khmu woman holds up two dead civet cats by their tails alongside several braces of tiny birds, trying to tempt passing bus passengers. "Everything in Laos is considered as food, except maybe cockroaches," says Troy Hansel of the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

Wildlife is also used in traditional medicines such as concoction of Leaf Monkey, porcupine stomach and Bamboo rat mixed in alcohol. But experts say traditional local consumption isn't the real threat to wildlife and woods.

"The illegal trade to China is the major danger, as it is to all the adjacent countries. Chinese have great appetite for everything, from turtles to tigers. Whenever there are in-depth studies of trade in a particular wildlife group, it seems that China comes up as the major destination," says Gordon Claridge, author of "Wildlife trade in Laos: the end of the game" (co-authored by Hanneke Nooren) which details the trade and involvement by some Lao officials. Since the book appeared in 2001, the sale of wildlife in Laos' markets and restaurants has been less blatant, conservation workers say, but they suspect much dealing has gone underground.

"The government says no logging, no shooting wildlife and no smoking opium, and along the roads people are afraid. But deeper inside they do it all after dark," a local trekking guide says, just as another gunshot is heard in the distance from inside the Nam Ha National Biodiversity Conservation Area.

The 20 Protected Areas, first decreed in 1993, cover 14% of the country, but they are declared as "paper parks" by critics. The government allocates just $500 yearly for each reserve, leaving them unguarded against slash-and-burn farming, livestock grazing or illegal logging. In addition, UN reports say the building of hydroelectric dams will harm 12 of the 20 reserves. A dozen of the parks lie along international frontiers, making it even easier for smugglers to work.

The biggest illegal trade involves wildlife and flora being sneaked into Vietnam and then funneled on to China, where the use in traditional medicines and food has increased greatly since the late 1980s when the Chinese economy began to prosper.

The Lao government is more aware of environmental problems but doesn't have the human resources to tackle them. Laos has only a handful of trained officials, no experts in birds or elephants and no local activist group concerned with the environment. The government is focused on economic development, including the building of roads into remote communities.

"Suddenly income-earning opportunities, like wildlife sale and logging, come to people's doorsteps and most can't resist them. They don't think about the future. And the government only thinks about building a road, but this opening up comes without education," says a spokesman from Switzerland-based World Conservation Union.

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