World Wildlife Fund

The greater Mekong's unique geography, incredible biodiversity, and rich cultures are increasingly at risk.
© WWF - Cynthia Tapley

The Mekong region is undergoing a massive and irreversible transformation. Commercial agriculture, unsustainable logging, hydroelectric development, road construction, and the pressures of an impoverished population are dramatically altering this region's natural resources, eliminating its wildlife, reducing the forest canopy and threatening its watersheds. WWF is focused on five areas that present the best opportunities for altering the global markets that challenge the future of nature here:

The pressures of rapidly changing agriculture and related growing infrastructure are drastically affecting habitat quality and forest cover.
© WWF-Canon / Elizabeth KEMF

Implementing sustainable agricultural practices
The region’s transition from subsistence farming to commercial agriculture presents one of the most serious threats to biodiversity. Today, agricultural enterprises convert forest habitats into farming land for crops such as sugar, rice and rubber. With growing demand for these thirsty crops, WWF is working with local communities and industry to encourage responsible agricultural practices that minimize habitat loss and reduce impacts on water use and quality.

Building a balanced infrastructure
The construction of economic corridors, essentially large infrastructure and energy blocks, throughout the region is accelerating transboundary trade and commerce. At the same time they threaten the Mekong’s biodiversity and local livelihoods with long-term consequences that are just becoming apparent. WWF is leading a collaborative effort with the Asian Development Bank and other conservation partners to promote sustainable approaches to infrastructure development that protect vital habitat corridors for wildlife and mitigate secondary impacts, such as deforestation and illegal wildlife trade. 

Almost 70% of the forest cover that once cloaked the greater Mekong has already been lost.
© WWF / Martin v Kaschke

Promoting sustainable forestry
Increased global demand for wood products has spurred an aggressive timber industry that operates largely uncontrolled. WWF collaborates with companies, communities and governments to encourage responsible forestry practices that lead to sustainable certification standards. This approach will enhance local economies, integrate watershed management, conserve biodiversity, and provide a long-term solution on a global scale. At a local level, WWF integrates landscape and land use planning into existing development so that high conservation value forests are protected. We also promote community forestry and community based natural resource management.

Endangered species are often used for food, medicine, pets, decoration and trophies.
© WWF - Greater Mekong

Enforcing bans on wildlife trade
Wildlife poaching for illegal trade, food consumption and traditional Chinese medicine are dangerously depleting populations of endangered species. Construction of new roads is opening once-remote areas to human exploration. WWF is partnering with local institutions and national governments to establish wildlife habitat protections to strengthen enforcement and limit encroachments on protected areas. TRAFFIC, WWF’s wildlife trade monitoring network, is working to protect wildlife and improve transboundary enforcement of the International Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Addressing climate change
The anticipated impacts from climate change create an urgent need to address infrastructure development in the region to create climate-proof conservation landscapes. WWF is in the process of carrying out climate change vulnerability assessments in priority landscapes - looking at sectors that deal with food security, migration, disaster relief, as well as more traditional environmental areas. We are helping build a region-wide climate change resilient network for protected areas and corridors.

Learn about the partnerships that make this work possible.