Friday 1 July: as economists hope that Asia’s tiger economies will now lead the way out of global recession, communist Laos remains a relative newcomer. Now it’s open for business – with outside investment pouring in, and resources like timber and rubber pouring out, transforming the country and turning virgin forest into fields and plantations.

But Laos, as tve’s Earth Report reveals in a programme broadcast on BBC World News tomorrow, is one of south-east Asia’s last biodiversity hotspots – and now commercial development is chipping away at the country’s natural capital. Sam Say is a successful Hong Kong businessman, originally from Laos, who’s searching for investment opportunities that won’t destroy his country’s heritage. This year, the UN Year of Biodiversity, he’s teamed up with botanist Dr Sounthone Ketphanh, director of Lao’s Forest Research Center. Together, in ‘Gambling on Laos’, they try to find out if the price of economic development is the loss of unique and valuable species and ecosystems.

BBC World News broadcasts ‘Gambling on Laos’ at the following times: Saturday 3 July 02:30 and 15:30; Sunday 4 July 09:30 and 21:30 (All times UK time zone) BBC World News broadcast times vary around the world. For details of transmissions in your region, check the BBC World News website.

Laos is resource rich – but, after decades of self-imposed economic isolation, also grindingly poor. It ranks 133 out of 182 in UNDP’s Human Development Index, with half of all children in rural areas chronically malnourished. Recently Laos has become a magnet for foreign investment, reaching US$4.3 billion in 2009 - mostly for the commercial exploitation of the country’s rich natural resources. But Laos is one of the last biodiversity hot spots in south-east Asia, boasting the widest range of large mammals in the region and over 50 percent of the world’s vascular plant species. The burning question today is whether this wealth of plant and animal species is now in jeopardy as outsider investors convert nature into monoculture.

Sam Say’s coffee farm is next to a 250-hectare plantation of 100,000 rubber trees. Dominated by one crop, plantations are a poor habitat for plants and animals. Since the 1980s, logging and converting land to single crops like rubber has slashed forest cover here by 15 percent. In the long run, Sam Say fears, this could lead to disaster for rural livelihoods. “Looking at the large-scale mono-cropping plantation model, what I am fearing is that we will lose the biodiversity of this country, and also a way of life for our people.”

On Sam’s journey to Northern Laos with Dr Sounthone Ketphanh, they uncover more evidence of booming investment. The Golden Triangle, on the Thai/ Burma border, was once notorious for opium cultivation. Now it’s become the wild west of rubber growing, farmers and investors scrambling to meet the massive demand from China’s booming motor industry. Dr Ketphanh is quick to point out that much of the new rubber is illegal because the government has banned the planting of any crop – especially rubber – on slopes steeper than 35 degrees. “As a botanist I have seen most of Laos, and I don’t think the country manages its biodiversity properly. This is because many people ignore the biodiversity policy set out by the government.”

But there are alternatives - and Dr Ketphanh takes Sam to Ban Namh Pheng village to how him the remarkable project he started 15 years ago. They find a thriving community, with local people reaping a sustainable harvest of bamboo shoots from a 400-hectare forest, and selling them into the lucrative Chinese market. Sam’s verdict? They don’t need investment - the villagers of Ban Namh Pheng are doing very well on their own.

To view a high-definition clip from the programme, visit tve’s YouTube channel. ‘Gambling on Laos’ is written and produced by Douglas Varchol and directed and edited by Alex Gabbay. Sombath Somphone, director of tve Lao partner, PADETC provided local production services and is producing a Lao version of the film.

The executive producer was Chris Jeans, and the production was overseen by Nick Rance, tve’s environment manager. ‘Gambling on Laos’ has been produced with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Swedish International Development Agency and the GTZ.

Contacts: Dina Junkermann, tve distribution manager, tel: +44 20 7901 8834; email: dina.junkermann@tve.org.uk Nick Rance, environment manager, tve tel: : +44 20 7901 8837; email: nick.rance@tve.org.uk tve 21 Elizabeth Street London SW1W 9RP United Kingdom tel +44 (0)20 7901 8855 fax +44 (0)20 7901 8856 tve@tve.org.uk www.tve.org tve on YouTube