Story | 02 May, 2018
Restoring from experience in Myanmar
With 45% forest cover, Myanmar has some of the largest remaining forest areas in Asia. Yet, the country suffers significant annual deforestation due to over-exploitation, illegal logging, shifting cultivation, governance and institutional issues, and expansion of…
Story | 05 Feb, 2018
60 year-old Sau Dung is a fisherman who lives by the Hau River, a tributary of the Mekong in Viet Nam’s Hau Giang Province. His family relies on his catch, and with his skill and hard work, he can earn VND 6 million (US$ 265) every month. But there are not many…
Story | 24 Jan, 2018
Innovative and collaborative: The future of plastic waste management in Sri Lanka
Plastic has become an essential part of life nearly everywhere in the world. Its durability, malleability, light weight and low production cost makes it one of the most widely-used material on the planet, which, in turn, has led to equally-widespread consequences for the environment.
Story | 18 Oct, 2017
MFF holds 14th Regional Steering Committee Meeting in Myanmar
The IUCN and UNDP regional coastal initiative Mangroves for the Future (MFF) held its 14th Steering Committee meeting in Yangon to assess achievements over the past year and discuss the programme's sustainability beyond 2018.
Story | 05 Sep, 2017
On August 29-30, 2017, 85 delegates from India, Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh gathered in Delhi, India for a South Asia regional consultation on forest landscape restoration (FLR). The consultation was hosted by IUCN in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate…
Story | 18 Jul, 2017
U.S.-ASEAN Conference on Marine Environmental Issues to be held in Bangkok, Thailand
The Stimson Center, on behalf of the U.S. State Department and in collaboration with IUCN and the Mangroves for the Future (MFF) Programme, is co-chairing the U.S.-ASEAN Conference on Marine Environmental Issues.
Story | 26 Jun, 2017
New tools to assess vulnerability of wetlands in the Mekong
From June 19 to 21, IUCN staff, partners, and local officials from the Xe Champhone and Beung Kiat Ngong Ramsar sites in Lao PDR gathered in Champhone District for a training on the use of a new series of tools to assess the vulnerability of the areas’ wetlands. The…
Story | 14 Jun, 2017
IUCN and Anantara collaborate to protect marine turtles in Sri Lanka
At a time where increasing pressure is being placed on the environment, the private sector is realising the importance of conserving natural habitats and biodiversity in order to protect the viability of their businesses. In Sri Lanka, as a symbol of their pledge to…
Story | 21 May, 2017
Banning vs. legalise and regulate in forest management
Two years ago, on a field survey in Bac Kan Province in Viet Nam, we heard about a farmer who needed 30 stamps to get a permit to harvest a single Styrax tonkinensis tree that was growing on his land. Even though the tree was on land that was designated as plantation forest and the farmer had a…
Story | 16 May, 2017
Conserving wetlands in Myanmar: Gulf of Mottama is Myanmar’s fourth Ramsar site
Myanmar is home to an extraordinary diversity of wetlands, which include mountainous wetlands; large freshwater marshes and lakes; and coastal mangroves, mudflats and coral reefs. These ecosystems support fisheries, provide clean water, store carbon and protect local people from the impacts of…