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Site description (2004 baseline)
The site comprises Thale Ban National Park, in the extreme south-west of peninsular Thailand. The site lies along the international border with Malaysia, and is linked to Ton Nga Chang Wildlife Sanctuary to the north by contiguous natural forest. The topography of the site is characterised by steep-sided hills, formed largely of limestone in the west and granite in the east. The national park boundary follows the base of these hills and excludes nearly all level lowland areas. Most of the natural forest at the site is distributed on steep hill slopes, and there is only a very small area of forest on level lowlands at around 100 m asl. The site also encompasses a 32 ha swamp, and small areas of banana and coffee cultivation.

Key biodiversity
The site is important for the conservation of a number of lowland evergreen forest species, including the globally threatened Wallace's Hawk Eagle Spizaetus nanus. The site is known to regularly support significant numbers of 36 globally near-threatened species, most of which are restricted to the Sundaic Lowland Forests (Biome 14). In addition, there are historical records of the globally vulnerable Masked Finfoot Heliopais personata from the site, with the last being in 1987. The site qualifies under criterion A3 because it supports 67 species restricted to the Sundaic Lowland Forests (Biome 14).

Non-bird biodiversity: Mammals Asian Elephant Elephas maximus (EN) Tiger Panthera tigris (EN) Southern Serow Capricornicus sumatraensis (VU) Plants Dipterocarpus kerrii (CR) Parashorea stellata (CR) Shorea hypochra (CR) Hopea pedicellata (EN) Shorea henryana (EN) Borassodendron machadonis ((VU))

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Recommended citation
BirdLife International (2024) Important Bird Area factsheet: Thaleban (Thailand). Downloaded from https://datazone.birdlife.org/site/factsheet/thaleban-iba-thailand on 22/11/2024.