Our conservation programme is built on 4 key conservation strategies.
- Strategy 1: Securing landscape integrity and climate change resilience through integrated conservationeconomic development planning and implementation.
- Strategy 2: Ensuring sustainable hydropower development to maintain ecosystem integrity of the Mekong
- river, priority tributaries and other rivers in priority landscapes
- Strategy 3: Strengthening law enforcement and protected area management to secure priority habitats and species
- Strategy 4: Securing sufficient sustainable & leveraged financing for conservation
The region comprises 4 ecoregions:
These ecoregions contain large intact tracts of forest; critically important
populations of globally threatened species such as the
tiger,
Asian
elephant, and the Mekong River dolphin; and the Mekong River system
itself, which holds 3 times more fish species per unit area than even the
Amazon River and provides food security and livelihoods for at least 60
million people.
Within the 4 ecoregions, WWF has identified 8 priority landscapes.
The primary rationale for the selection of place targets is to ensure that a representative sample of an area’s biodiversity is maintained through the application of conservation and sustainable management.
In addition to ensuring that representative biodiversity is effectively conserved, effective landscape conservation can contribute to a number of other desirable conservation outcomes. These including increased resilience to and ability to adapt to climate change and the maintenance of ecological services such as carbon sequestration and the provision and regulation of water supplies.
The priority landscapes include:
1. Dawna Tenasserim Landscape: Thailand/Myanmar
2. Eastern Plains Landscape: Cambodia/Vietnam
3. Southern Laos / Central Vietnam Landscape:
Laos/Vietnam
4. Southern Annamites Landscape: Vietnam
5. Mekong Source Area: China
6. Nong Khai, Nakhon Phanom, Bolikhamsay, Khammeun: Thailand/Laos
7. Siphandone, Stung Treng, Kratie section: Cambodia/Laos
8. Mekong River Delta: Vietnam
Securing priority species.
Many of the region’s species face extinction in the next 5 years unless urgent measures are taken to safeguard their populations and habitats. While WWF-Greater Mekong's focal species -
tiger,
saola,
Asian elephant,
Irrawaddy dolphin (Mekong subpopulation),
Mekong giant catfish,
Crested gibbons - represent many of the region’s most threatened mammals, they also have been selected to represent some of the world’s most unique and imperilled habitats and thus provide a basis for conserving these habitats.
WWF has a long history of engagement in the region.
The organization helped establish conservation programmes in Thailand in the early 1980's and has been active in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam since 1990.
WWF has both the experience and credibility to deliver the critical interventions needed. We are fast reaching a conservation crisis - with several flagship species on the verge of loss and habitats under unprecedented threat levels.
Partnerships are more essential than ever before, and a sustainable livelihoods approach is vital with more than 80% of the region’s population dependent on increasingly scarce natural resources.
