ABSTRACT
Environmental change, sustainable development and conservation in South-East Asia are three major and inter-related issues of great social and scientific concern. In most of the countries in the region, ‘environmental change’ is often assumed to be synonymous with ‘deforestation’. In many instances this is justifiably so as the loss of primary tropical rainforest, and the attendant biological diversity, are one of the greatest concerns of biologists throughout the world. However, deforestation is but one process by which environmental change may occur. The end products of forest exploitation range from thinned and damaged primary forest right through to abandoned wastelands. Other causes of forest destruction and localized environmental change are the reservoirs created for hydro-electric or water management purposes, such as the Pergau and Bakun Dams in Malaysia or, on a smaller scale, the Binutan reservoir in Brunei.
