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New research from Queen’s University Belfast shows that the
tropical forests of South East Asia have been shaped by humans for the last
11,000 years.
The rain forests of Borneo, Sumatra, Java, Thailand and
Vietnam were previously thought to have been largely unaffected by humans, but
the latest research from Queen’s Palaeoecologist Dr Chris Hunt suggests
otherwise.
A major analysis of vegetation histories across the three
islands and the SE Asian mainland has revealed a pattern of repeated
disturbance of vegetation since the end of the last ice age approximately
11,000 years ago.