The Greater Mekong and its headwaters is a region of high biodiversity, high carbon-storage value and, crucially, immensely important freshwater services for millions of people. The region’s ecosystems are under threat from massive commodity-driven transformation which will affect the biodiversity and ecosystem services upon which people and economies in the region depend. This enormous pressure is a challenge for the environmental planning and management processes in all Greater Mekong Basin countries, and national and regional environmental policy and legal frameworks will need strengthening in order to ensure that the rapid economic development is sustainable over the long term.

This report is the first of a two-part study that supports the targeting of conservation-related investments in the Greater Mekong Basin (GMB) by the MacArthur Foundation and other donors. The second part of the study is a spatial analysis of the potential impacts of future scenarios for commodity-driven land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the region’s watersheds.

The main objective of this report is to provide a synthesis of the impacts of major commodity developments on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the GMB and the current capacity to respond to these pressures.