(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."