The March-June edition of the magazine "Watershed" focuses on the issue of tree plantations in Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam as part of the broader picture of the spread of industrial tree plantations in the South.

This edition of Watershed is the result of a collaborative effort between a large number of individuals and organizations --mostly from within but also from outside the Mekong region-- concerned over the social and environmental impacts resulting from large-scale tree monocultures.

The idea came up at a workshop on commercial tree plantations in the Mekong region held in Chachoengsao Province, Thailand, in May 2003, and was supported by the regional organization TERRA (Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance), which publishes the magazine Watershed.

This edition of Watershed --whose cover page states that "Plantations are NOT forests"-- is the result of that effort and contains:

- an editorial providing an overview of the issue
- three feature articles focusing on Thailand, Laos and Cambodia
- a number of reports on issues such as plantations and soil erosion, impacts of pulp mills, plantation certification, Finnish involvement in plantations and community perceptions about plantations.

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