Biodiversity is disappearing faster from the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) than anywhere else on Earth. Rapid development in local economic corridors has fragmented natural landscapes, isolating critical ecosystems and turning conservation areas into ever shrinking islands. Burgeoning infrastructure likewise facilitates poaching, endangered species trafficking and illegal wildlife consumption on a grand scale. To counter these devastating losses, ECO-Asia has undertaken several crucial conservation initiatives.
ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) Support Program
Through support for the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN), ECO-Asia helps suppress wildlife crime. ASEAN-WEN is an intergovernmental initiative by countries in the GMS. It is also a multi-agency undertaking. Police, Customs Officials and authorities tasked with implementing the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) are all involved. The network provides a means for improved wildlife law enforcement at the national level, as well as better cross-border cooperation to respond effectively to illegal wildlife trade. ECO-Asia’s ASEAN-WEN Support Program promotes these networking efforts by providing models for effective wildlife law enforcement, building capacity in participating government agencies and bringing officials from different countries together to resolve cross-border wildlife crime.
By fostering the creation of a national task force and promoting effective interagency coordination, ASEAN-WEN is improving regional cooperation on wildlife law enforcement issues. Through task force trainings, the ASEAN-WEN Support Program also strengthens the capacities of Asian governments to uphold their respective laws for protection of threatened and endangered wildlife. ASEAN-WEN works closely with international bodies, such as the CITES and ASEAN Secretariats, to promote best practices, intelligence exchanges and cross-border cooperative activities.
For more information, see the ASEAN-WEN website 
FREELAND Foundation , is the primary implementer of this activity.
Asia Regional Biodiversity Conservation Program
Through ECO-Asia, the Asia Regional Biodiversity Conservation Program works with the Government of Vietnam and the Asian Development Bank’s Biodiversity Conservation Corridors Initiative (BCI) to establish a biodiversity conservation landscape in the Dong Nai River Basin in Vietnam. The conservation landscape is designed and managed to restore and maintain ecosystem connectivity, promote biodiversity conservation and improve the livelihoods of the rural poor. Central to this program is a Payment of Environmental Services (PES) scheme, which offers a tangible means of financing biodiversity conservation management while also generating tangible economic benefits for the rural poor. This pilot conservation landscape serves as a regional model for establishing future conservation landscapes in Vietnam and the GMS.
Working in partnership with the Government of Vietnam, ECO-Asia promotes landscape-level economic planning that integrates biodiversity conservation into the development plans for the Dong Nai watershed. Through targeted technical assistance and training, ECO-Asia prioritizes actions needed to conserve biodiversity conservation based on high biodiversity irreplaceability, high level of threat and low opportunity costs of conservation. Results will impact up to five conservation corridors implemented under the BCI.
For more information, see the website of our implementing partner, Winrock .
Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT)
Recognizing the importance of sustainable management of Asia’s forest resources, USAID recently partnered with The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit environmental organization, to protect Asia’s unique forest biodiversity. The new partnership, the Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade (RAFT) program, brings together a catalytic group of NGOs, governments and the private sector to transform the tropical timber trade.
RAFT builds on the successes of the Global Development Alliance, a USAID-sponsored program in Indonesia, and applies lessons learned on a regional scale. RAFT works with forest producers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Papua New Guinea. Additionally, RAFT works in other countries such as China, Japan, Singapore, members of the European Union, and the U.S. to address procurement and investment policies that promote the legal timber trade.
Through the RAFT initiative, The Nature Conservancy and ECO-Asia protect forests in Asia by transforming the market for tropical timber to achieve sustainability. RAFT focuses on promoting responsible timber trade and the sustainable management of forest resources and biodiversity. The initiative aims to improve forest management practices, promote timber trade from certified legal sources, reduce forest-related conflict, and strengthen regional cooperation on forest management and trade.
For more information, see the Raft Program website
