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Hala and Bala, at the southernmost extremity of Thailand on the Malaysian border, are two adjacent but unconnected blocks of Malayan-type evergreen tropical rain forest. The forests are comprised mostly of species typical of the Sundaic or Malesian Region (Malay Peninsular, Borneo, Sumatra, Java), many restricted or uncommon in Thailand and with their main range further south on the Malay Peninsula. Bala (50-963 m a.s.l., 1,057 sq. km) has small tracts of lowland forest that are not found at Hala, and Hala (100-1,490 m a.s.l., 1,650 sq. km) has higher areas with patches of montane forest not found at Bala, each with some typical birds not found anywhere else in Thailand. The greatest area of habitat, in both Hala and Bala, is intermediate hill forest that shares a rich avifauna of species, many of which do not occur in many other areas of Thailand. Technically, the forests of both areas comprise mainly Tropical Lowland Rain Forest, with communities of Dipterocarp and Palm, and of Eugeissona and Johannesteijsmannia, but only in Hala is there also Lower Montane Rain Forest with communities of Fagaceae and Ilicium, Ericaceae and Dacrydium, and Vegetation over Limestone. The two areas were partially logged prior to the 1989 ban on logging in Thailand and were combined and protected as the Hala-Bala Wildlife Sanctuary in 1995, although an area alongside the main road through Bala was partially logged as recently as 1987-92.
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