THE Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Environmental Program have jointly published a book providing comprehensive information aimed at aiding the implementation of sustainable development programs in Southeast Asia.

Part of a satellite-based image in the atlas showing forest cover in the Greater Mekong Subregion.

Greater Mekong Subregion Atlas of the Environment focuses on the five countries linked by the 4200-kilometre Mekong River: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and China’s Yunnan province.

In 1992 these countries took steps to strengthen economic ties and develop common economic policy goals by establishing the Greater Mekong Subregional Economic Cooperation Program.

At a summit meeting in November 2002 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, the group reiterated its original goals and declared its intention to pursue sustainable development programs that would simultaneously protect the environment and boost the economy of the region.

Although the area through which the Mekong passes is rich in resources – including minerals, timber and arable land – 20 per cent of the people, or about 55 million out of a total population of 250 million, live in poverty.

For the authors of the atlas, poverty is not only measured in terms of income but is also defined by “deprivation of essential assets and opportunities to which every human is entitled.” These include basic education, health care, nutrition, potable water and sanitation.

In the book’s Foreword, Tadao Chino, the president of the Asian Development Bank, and Klaus Toepfer, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program, write that the primary challenge facing the Mekong area is eradicating this poverty “while preserving (the subregion’s) rich environmental heritage.”

Toward this end, the large format environmental atlas offers more than 200 pages of text, colour photographs, maps, remote sensing images, tables and graphs aimed at academics, students, policymakers and non-government organisations involved in sustainable development in Southeast Asia.

Those who open this book expecting an entertaining National Geographic coffee table publication may feel overwhelmed by the amount of information it contains. The authors have crammed a huge amount of data between the covers, in some cases squeezing two or three photographs, a similar number of tables and graphs, and a stream of text onto a single page.

Although it can be difficult to scale, this mountain of data is also the book’s strength. It would be difficult to identify any particular piece of information as inessential to a comprehensive study of the Mekong subregion, and considering the importance of the subject, most readers would be reluctant to do so.

The mind-boggling litany of facts and figures is fortunately mitigated by an intuitive overall organisation that makes it easy for researchers to home in on the specific information they are seeking.

The book is divided into six sections: Greater Mekong Subregion Profile, Five Countries and One Province, Environment and Natural Resource Use, People and Environment, Toward Sustainable Development, and Remote Sensing Images of Ecoregions.

Most of these are further subdivided into more specific chapters. The Five Countries and One Province section features a chapter for each members of the subregion. They include straightforward encyclopedia-style essays providing an overview of the area, photographs, maps and facts and figures tables.

The Environment and Natural Resource Use section looks at the use and development potential of essential resources. There are chapters dedicated to water, minerals, energy, wetlands, forestlands, biodiversity, protected areas, agriculture and fisheries.

People and Environment includes studies of the Mekong subregion’s wide variety of ethnic groups, the links between poverty and the environment, and progress being made in the eight development goals laid out at the Millennium Summit of the United Nations, held in New York in September 2000.

Toward Sustainable Development looks at trends in industrialisation, urbanisation, migration, transportation and telecommunications; challenges to development, such as agricultural productivity, conservation and pollution; and a variety of responses to these challenges by nations and by subregional and international organisations.

The most visually compelling section is Remote Sensing Images of Ecoregions, featuring 40 satellite photographs of specific areas that show major land cover features on the ground, such as water, urban and cultivated areas, cattle ranges, forestland and grassland. By studying these images the reader can gain a greater appreciation of the impact that humans are having on the landscape of Southeast Asia.

The book concludes with tables of economic, social, and environmental statistics; a bibliography of books, articles, reports and websites; a glossary; a list of abbreviations and acronyms; and subject and geographic indexes.

Greater Mekong Subregion Atlas of the Environment may be ordered through www.adb.org/publications or by email at adpub@adb.org. It is priced at US$40 for softbound, $60 hardbound and $10 CD-ROM, inclusive of postage and handling.