While the region’s economies have grown rapidly, its forested area has decreased by more than 5% from 1990 to 2015. Ongoing threats include agricultural expansion, unsustainable land-use planning and forest management, extractive industries and trade and policies that prioritise short-term gains over the long-term value of natural capital.

To change this trajectory, WWF is working with partners to transform practices on the ground, encouraging market demand and improving supply chains for sustainable forest products. From bamboo in Cambodia to rattan in Laos, from rubber in Thailand to acacia in Viet Nam, our work engages communities, smallholders and small and medium-sized enterprises along forest supply chains by:

• Building capacity in sustainable forest management and production in both natural forest and plantations
• Improving legality and traceability to allow better market linkages between producers and local and international markets
• Empowering communities as stewards and benefactors of the forest
• Promoting sustainable livelihoods such as agroforestry and harvesting non-timber forest products
• Leveraging community voices with policymakers and upholding their rights in land tenure and financial mechanisms
• Enhancing knowledge sharing, replication and upscaling of best practices between communities, governments, businesses and other partners
• Researching and monitoring deforestation and degradation linked to specific commodities and assessing forest risks to develop proactive solutions to land use trends and trade policies 
• Developing standards and systems to regulate the trade of legal sustainable forest products in regional and international value chains
• Enhancing collection, monitoring, accessibility, exchange, traceability and transparency of data on forests, land use and trade flows in the region
• Organising regional dialogues surrounding timber marketplaces, illegal logging trends, developments in forests and the role of the financial sector in promoting sustainable timber trade
• Promoting responsible investments and encouraging the adoption of certifications and standardisations to incentivise sustainable wood supply chains