ABSTRACT

The Lower Mekong Basin is experiencing a total transformation of its social, economic and natural environment. Exceptional advances have been made in reducing poverty, in expanding infrastructure networks, in trade and commerce and in improving the quality of life in many of the region's diverse communities and cultures. There is no hard distinction between natural and human-modified systems. Rather, there is a continuum of degradation and alteration of system characteristics and function. An industrial agricultural system is a highly altered system, much simplified and more linear than a subsistence or agro-ecological based system having higher biodiversity and more functions with greater cycling of nutrients and internal self-regulation. At the global scale, approximately 20 to 30 percent of plant and animal species are at risk of extinction due to climate change-associated temperature increases. Climate change impacts have negative consequences for a number of key provisioning services and assets of protected areas.