Monsoon Asia comprises those parts of tropical Asia that are under the influence of a seasonally dry monsoonal climate. Monsoon Asia includes South Asia and Southeast Asia, as well as the southern and eastern periphery of East Asia. Owing to favourable climatic conditions, as well as other biogeographic factors, these parts of Asia are particularly rich in biodiversity and harbour most of Asia’s biodiversity hotspots. Biodiversity is strongly linked to habitat conditions and thus also to land use as one of the factors affecting habitat quality. Land use, however, is changing from historic agricultural systems to modern commercial systems. Land-use change has accelerated all over Monsoon Asia since the 1960s, mainly as a result of economic growth, infrastructure development, emerging trade networks, development programmes, and policies governing resource exploitation and conservation. Land-use change is generally understood to have a negative effect on biodiversity, mainly through habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, introduction of exotic species, pollution, and other processes. Deforestation and forest degradation are in this respect considered to be the most detrimental processes of land-use and land-cover change in Monsoon Asia. Our understanding of deforestation processes and their effects on biodiversity is, however, hampered by the low quality or poor interpretation of land-cover data, insufficient knowledge of drivers and underlying causes of deforestation, and the rapidity with which economic and political transitions are happening in this part of the world. Another aspect of land-use change causing biodiversity losses is the decline of agrobiodiversity in South and Southeast Asia as a result of agricultural intensification promoted by government policies.