GMS Faces Challenges From Growth

The Atlas shows the GMS's current population of a quarter of a billion is expected to grow to 290 million by 2015. Economic growth over the next two decades is likely to come from increases in manufacturing and services, rather than agriculture.

Thailand, the economic hub for the subregion, looks set to double its demand in natural resources in the next quarter century as a result of such growth and rising consumption levels. Although agriculture employs 50% of Thailand's people, it accounts for 9% of GDP. Agriculture is currently practiced on 21% of the subregion's land.

Increasing agricultural productivity needed to meet rising populations and consumption brings with it the specter of further wetland conversion and forest encroachment and further compounding of salinization, water pollution from nutrients and increased soil toxicity from chemical use.

Given the increasingly limited income opportunities in rural areas, rural-urban migration is expected to increase markedly. Provision for 50% more people in urban areas will be needed in less than 15 years.

Water and air pollution in the GMS are localized but raise significant issues, with basic sewage and drainage systems not well maintained, and serious air, surface and groundwater pollution in major metropolitan areas, particularly disposal of industrial effluents and toxic and hazardous by-products of the growing industrial sector.

The contribution of inland fisheries to the economy and welfare has been grossly underestimated. The 55 million or so people in the Lower Mekong River Basin (about a third of the subregion's area) consume an average of 56.6 kg of fish per person per year. Despite poor regulation, over harvesting, and destructive fishing practices, fisheries yields have been stable or even increasing, but urgent safeguards need to be put in place.

Forty percent of the subregion is classified as forestland but current rates of exploitation are unsustainable and deforestation is a challenge across the region.

Effective conservation of rich biodiversity regions like the Annamite Range rainforests - situated along the border of Lao PDR and Viet Nam and the only place where new species of large mammals have been discovered in the past 50 years - may require the establishment of transboundary protected areas.

Initiatives to protect other significant areas of biodiversity include the designation of the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve - home to many of Cambodia's 500 species of freshwater fishes. There are now 550 protected areas in the subregion, of which 380 have biodiversity conservation as a major function.

The Atlas documents cross-border environmental issues such as hydropower developments along the Mekong and its tributaries, canalization and other navigational improvements in the Upper Mekong, conflicting maritime claims to offshore fisheries resources, and illegal cross-border trade in timber, wildlife and rare and endangered species.

The Atlas assessed country progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals, and shows more needs to be done to meet the targets committed to by governments. It shows one in five people still live in poverty and large gaps between the haves and have-nots in each country.

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