สำนักราชบัณฑิตยสภา

The Journal of the Royal Institute of Thailand Volume II - 2010 Visut Baimai 109 The natural world of biological diversity is concentrated in tropical forests and coral reefs, including those that exist in Thailand. Thailand is a relatively small country with a total area of about 513,000 km 2 . Thailand also has long coastlines of some 2,600 km facing the South China Sea to the east and the Andaman Sea on the west side. In the past, 70 percent of the total land area was covered with various kinds of tropical forest including broad-leaved evergreen, dry dipterocarp and pine forest, mixed deciduous forest, peat swamp forest and mangrove forest along coastlines (Figure 2). About 1/3 of the coastal areas are bordered by mangrove forests. These variations of forest type provide terrestrial and aquatic habitats for numerous life forms in complex ecosystems (Figure 3). Thailand’s tropical forests support some 12,000 species of vascular plants, roughly 15,000 known species of animals and about 10,000 known species of microorganisms. It is believed that more than 100,000 species of living organisms in these forests await discovery. Thus Thailand is situated in one of the richest areas of the world with regard to biological resources. Figure 2 Different types of forest in Thailand Figure 3 Flora and fauna of Thailand