(AFP) - news focus

When the rains came to northern Thailand, an unstoppable tidal wave of debris crashed down in a flash flood to sweep away entire villages and claim more than 100 lives.

The Thai government promised new warning systems to avert floods and landslides after the disaster in Lom Sak district in early August, which was blamed in part on the effects of deforestation.

But activists said the lesson was stark - sturdy trees need to be replanted, and in massive numbers, to replace Asian woodland lost to decades of unsustainable logging."So much land has been cleared for logging and plantations that the soil is bare. Floods happen all too easily," says Greenpeace forestry activist Leon Ko.

Thailand responded a decade ago with a logging ban, but the damage in terms of soil erosion is done and according to Ko: "It takes 100 years for forest cover to come back once it's gone." Frankly, Asian governments aren't doing much."

With each annual monsoon season in Asia, deforested land becomes more barren as the rain washes away the topsoil. Before long, hillsides are a rocky wasteland down which water easily runs off and swells the rivers below. The habitats of endangered species are disappearing, and the human cost is being counted in death and destruction.

At current rates of harvesting, remaining timber reserves in Asia will last for less than 40 years, the United Nations Environment Programme said in its latest global report. "In the process of deforestation, two-thirds of wildlife habitats have been destroyed, and vast expanses of naturally fragile land, particularly upper water catchment areas, have been exposed to soil erosion," it said.

In China, Premier Zhu Rongji banned timber felling in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and tributaries after devastating floods along the Yangtze in 1998 left more than 4,000 people dead.

Lax law enforcement

Logging, however, remains a lucrative business with worldwide demand strong for mahogany, teak and other tropical timber. And with the onset of economic crisis, many Asians have returned to the land to make what they can to survive.

Roy, a tour guide on Lombok, says riots in early 2000 scared away the tourists who are the lifeblood of the economy for the beautiful Indonesian island. Surveying a dwindling patch of forest inhabited by Celebes monkeys, on fertile land in the shadows of the Gunang Rinjani volcano, he says "last year this was all mahogany."

"But when the tourist industry dropped off, the tourist workers all went back to the farms. They cut down the mahogany for the money." Asked about the police response, Roy replied: "We just pay them off."

Lax or non-existent law enforcement is common throughout the region, logging campaigners say. Illegal loggers moved across the borders into Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar after the ban was instituted in Thailand.

The Cambodian parliament is expected to pass new anti-logging legislation in October, in the aftermath of floods last year that killed almost 400 people. This summer, floods in eight Cambodian provinces have forced the evacuation of nearly 400,000 people.

But enforcement of the anti-logging fines will be down to local officials and police who, activists say, will all too often look the other way on payment of a bribe. "The government is not addressing corruption and lack of transparency in the sector," said Jon Buckrell, a spokesman for London-based Global Witness, an independent forestry monitoring group that was allowed into Cambodia under pressure from the impoverished nation's foreign aid donors.

Community involvement

Indonesia, home to some 10 percent of the world's remaining tropical forest cover, saw years of "rapacious deforestation" under former dictator Suharto, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency.

Despite limited reforms since the 1998 fall of Suharto, "it is still business as usual for the timber barons," argues the Indonesian non-governmental organisation. "The economic crisis racking Indonesia has put additional pressure on the forests as people across the country have been forced into desperate measures to survive."

Asian governments have long argued that economic development must be their priority and that environmental protection can wait. Europe's forests have largely disappeared and it is hypocrisy for governments in the developed world to press an environmental agenda on Asia, they argue.

But according to Ko at Greenpeace, Europe's experience should be taken as a warning and not a pattern to be emulated. "This is something you can't fix later, and it may already be too late," she said.

Consumer pressure represents one hope to protect Asia's dwindling forests."A lot of European countries are looking for sustainable logging, they want timber that can be tagged 'green'. Consumers are getting more and more aware," Ko said.

Local communities also need to be more involved, said Richard Mahapatra, a researcher with the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. "If you involve them in forest conservation efforts, explaining the links between the environment and the people, and how they can use forests in a sustainable way, conservation efforts will be successful," he said.