Dong Phayayen – Khao Yai Forest Complex

Thap Lan is Thailand’s second-largest park and one of the last intact habitats for a suite of threatened and endangered species: elephants, Asiatic bears, clouded leopards, banteng, gaur, sambar, Malayan sun bears, hornbills, and over 800 other vertebrate species. Thap Lan is at the heart of the Dong Phayayen - Khao Yai Forest Complex, a 595,700-hectare cluster of five contiguous national parks and a globally important biodiversity hotspot. This area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, contains the last substantial piece of Southeastern Indochina dry evergreen forests in the world. It is one of the rare forest landscapes in Thailand that supports two species of globally endangered gibbons—pileated and white-handed. Intriguingly, scientists think that the depths of these poorly-explored forests, with their vast valleys, deep chasms, and thundering waterfalls, might still contain one of the world’s most endangered mammals.