'Asia's birds under extinction threat'

The report by conservation group Birdlife International also stressed that Asia's vast ornithological diversity would take a punishing hit in the next decade if governments did not move to formally protect the habitats of the threatened species, some 100 of which are listed as critically endangered.

"If we do not take action we are going to lose 100 species or so in the next 10 years," Birdlife's Asia director Richard Grimmett told AFP at a briefing to launch the report, "Important Bird Areas in Asia".

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Some 332 bird species in Asia are under threat of extinction, mainly from the destruction of forest habitat, Grimmett said at a forum of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) gathering in Bangkok.

Covering 28 countries from India to Japan, the report pinpointed 2,293 "important bird areas", many of them of global significance. Forty-three percent of the sites are not formally protected by governments, with another 14 percent only partially protected, said Grimmett.