Long known as a hotspot for rapid and largely illegal deforestation, Cambodia was singled out in a May 2017 EIA report. The report was the result of months of undercover investigations which found that from November 2016, more than 300,000 cubic metres (nearly 10.6 million cubic feet) of timber have been illegally felled in a wildlife sanctuary and two protected areas in Cambodia. Most of the timber was sold to Vietnam and generated $13 million in payments from Vietnamese timber traders. Environmental experts believe that a much-publicized crackdown on illegal logging launched in Cambodia in early 2016 had very little effect.

The importance of tropical rain forest for addressing climate change was formally recognized in the Paris Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC. The Paris Agreement advocates countries to incorporate forests and ecosystems protection into country plans for reducing emissions. To combat climate change, except protecting and restoring forests, it is also essential to maintain the full faunal composition to ensure long term survival and maximize full capacity. Last but not least, recognizing the role of maintaining core areas of intact primary forest through parks, reserves, indigenous territories and other protected areas to ensure that restoration of forests takes place in a way that fully restores those forests to their many ecosystem service roles is also important.

Google has flown one of its Street View cameras down a zip wire for the first time. It set up a wire in the Amazon rainforest to capture new 360-degree images of the trees from root to tip. The new images have been released on Google Maps and the hope is that “environmentalists will use it as a tool to go and see what's there." The images have also captured lots of previously unrecorded wildlife.

In response to the dramatic decline of forest cover in West Africa, 15 member countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) have agreed to work together across borders to protect and manage the region’s forests and wildlife. The Convergence Plan for the Sustainable Management and use of Forest Ecosystems in West Africa was adopted alongside the Sub-regional Action Program to Combat Desertification at a meeting on 12 September 2013.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)’s Global Forest Assessment 2010 reported that 870,000 ha of forests were lost in the sub-region each year between 2000 and 2010. The convergence plan notes that these losses were due primarily to illegal cutting, brush fires, extensive agriculture (farming over large areas of land with low productivity) and transhumance (moving livestock from one grazing area to another), as well as legal, political, technical and economic limitations.

Analysis of the prospects for Burma’s forests in the wake of international sanctions being lifted. Aside from some ad hoc exploitation Burma’s primary forests have remained largely intact and are home to a rich diversity of wildlife. Meanwhile Burma’s leaders appear to be taking a measured approach to environmental planning with the recent postponement of a Chinese-sponsored dam citing environmental concerns and civil society in the country is increasingly active. However, an EU FLEGT report published last year noted that the government does not collect or publish detailed data on the forest sector and concluded that the forest sector has become increasingly corrupt.