As most of us may have known, Southeast Asia is the biodiversity hotspot of the planet which contributes up to 20% of the world’s global plant, animal and marine species. However, due to many factors, largely because of humans’ agriculture and urbanization activities, this diversity in bio-cultural is drastically destroyed, as up to 30 percent of species globally are at increased risk of extinction, according to The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). As a citizen of the region, a Vietnamese to be specific, I used to be proud, living in such an area where all people can enjoy the great clean fresh environment around. However, as time goes by, us humans seem to be overexploiting what nature has dearly given to us, as all the statistics and numbers have shown, and I am no longer proud but instead sad and angry with this reality.

Acknowledging data such as: “SE Asia has some of the highest deforestation rates in the world, with estimates of around 14.5% of regional forest cover loss in the last 15 years and an average rate of 1% loss annually”, “In countries such as the Philippines, deforestation has already removed 93% of the original forest cover”, and “73% of land covered by forest in 1973, only 51% existed by 2009” breaks my heart. I wonder what are people doing with this beautiful planet. As deforestation occurs more on a regular basis, we are first exposed to contaminated air and water, not to mention other severe results that the issue can cause, and that to me is already unacceptable. Why do we have to “experience” such things while we were at first offered safe, clean sources of living environment?? How bad the conditions will be for our future children? Is humanity slowly taking themselves to extinction just like other animals? These questions, for now, may seem unrealistic and far-fetched, but I believe unless something is done about this, such concerns of mine will become reality.

Animals are dying as their natural habitats are being destroyed by many different activities by humans for different purposes. One representative example would be the palm oil production in Malaysia and Indonesia over the past decades since the 1960s, which brought the species living in Sumatra forest - one of the most diverse biodiverse forests in the world - to the edge of extinction. As a fact, fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers exist in the wild today. Also, data have shown that, between 1990 and 2005, 1 million hectares of forest were lost in Malaysia and between 1.7 and 3 million hectares of forest were lost in Indonesia due to oil palm expansion. All of these losses, just to fulfill peoples’ obsession with oil palm productions for profits. I honestly do not know how much profit will be enough to compensate for the loss we made on our living environment. What is the point of money if we are all gonna suffer from climate changes, global warming, and afterward catastrophes/ disasters? You know those movies “2012”, “The Impossible”, “Geostorm”, etc, they are true to some extent; they showed us the reality of future humanity, in which there is no humanity at all.

Considering humans as animals and considering what we are doing to this planet, we will once all extinct, just like those animals which we contributed to the killing. Therefore, I am writing this to raise awareness and to ring the bell for all of us, especially ones from Southeast Asia where the biodiversity is currently being heavily destroyed, so that we can individually do something to help protect our biodiversity, and afterward together save our living environment!