KUALA LUMPUR - A United Nations report says Asian golf courses are among the threats to the earth's cloud forests, which are vital habitats for thousands of rare and endangered species and crucial sources of water.

The report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) points specifically to popular golf courses in the relatively-cool Malaysian hill-stations of Genting and Cameron Highlands as offenders.

The report was released at a conference on the Convention on Biological Diversity, which has drawn some 2,000 government officials, scientists and environmental activists to the Malaysian capital.

The first comprehensive survey of cloud forests, which capture moisture from clouds and fog, also names tourism development and road building as growing dangers along with agriculture and climate change.

It says that contrary to previous estimates, most of these "rare, romantic and fragile" forests are to be found in Asia rather than in Latin America.

Apart from tourism development, "seven out of 10 Asian countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, mentioned timber extraction and logging as an issue".

Cloud forests account for less than 2.5% of the world's tropical rain forests, with around 60% in Asia, 25% in Latin America and 15% in Africa.

The ability of these forests to strip and retain moisture from clouds and fog is key to clean and predictable water supplies in many areas, including cities such as the Honduran capital Tegucigalpa, Quito, Mexico City and Dar es Salaam, the report says.

UNEP's Executive Director Klaus Toepfer said the report "highlights how relatively small and special areas of the earth play a disproportionately important role" in meeting targets of improving drinking water supplies and slowing the loss of biodiversity.

The Convention on Biological Diversity grew out of the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro and aims to prevent human beings from driving everything else to extinction while chasing their own economic development. It has been ratified by more than 187 countries.

Priorities at the Kuala Lumpur conference include the biological diversity of mountain ecosystems, the role of protected areas in the preservation of life and the sharing of technology.

Activists are also expected to press for intermediate targets to be set for the implementation of the already agreed plan for "a significant reduction in the rate of loss of biodiversity" by 2010.

AFP