Deforestation in Borneo

The Bornean tropical rainforests are currently being destroyed at a rate of 400,000m2 of forest per minute; the equivalent of almost 60 soccer fields. Although these areas of dense shrubbery may not appear to be much, tropical rainforests are home to more than 50% of the world’s flora and fauna species, making them a vital part of our ecosystem.

Deforestation, which involves the burning or cutting down of forests for profit, occurs mostly for agricultural and timber industry purposes. Global demand for products, which both directly and indirectly require deforestation, such as crops and livestock, paper, timber and palm oil, are continually increasing as countries and populations expand. Over the span of the last 20 years, more than 3,000,000km2 of tropical rainforest has been cleared as a result of urban development and population expansion, mining for globally sought after resources and agriculture. Since the introduction of industrial land clearing and deforestation, the industry has developed immensely and the improvements of modern machinery have allowed for increased efficiency and decreased costs of clearing land. Despite the economic profit of land clearing, these practices cause profound environmental damage in countries such as Borneo.

Borneo’s rainforests foster the perfect environment for flora and fauna to flourish, and currently support 23,000 plant and tree species and 300,000 animal species. Despite the fact that it is one of the most biodiverse areas of the world, it is the region with the highest number of endangered species as a result of deforestation. An estimation made by researchers of the Carnegie Institution for Science predicts that only 22% of the island of Borneo has not yet been logged. It is also likely that the majority of this area is located in the independent state of Brunei, as they are less dependent on palm oil and timber, and heavily dependent on their petroleum and gas reserves as their primary economic contributor.

Although indirectly, we as consumers are the root cause of deforestation as this process is carried out predominantly to grow and harvest palm oil, which is present in an abundance of commercial products such as cosmetics, margarines and as cooking oil, because of its high saturated fat content. In terms of environmental stimulators for the palm oil industry, Borneo’s natural tropical climate and relatively flat landscape provides the ideal conditions for palm oil plantations, encouraging this industry to be concentrated on exploiting the natural resources of Borneo.

Currently, protected native forests are being destroyed to clear land for palm oil plantations. In fact, eighty percent of Malaysian Borneo rainforests have already been degraded by logging and clearing for palm oil plantations. In an effort to become the world leaders in palm oil trade, the Indonesian Palm Oil Commission increased their plantations by 1.4 million hectares in 2010. This has led to more land clearing which destroys animal habitats, produces greenhouse gas emissions and leads to soil instability and lack of biodiversity. Indonesia is currently ranked as the world’s largest greenhouse gas producer after China and the United States, on account for their mass production of palm oil. The only factor which prevents palm oil and timber companies from clearing the entire island is that the slope of the mountain ranges in the Heart of Borneo are not suitable for palm plantations and inconvenient for harvesting. Unfortunately, illegal tree logging is also a prominent issue due to lack of law enforcement, and in 2012, 40% of all loss of forest occurred within official forest that prohibited land clearing. Illegal land clearing also destroys the natural habitat of Bornean orangutans, who are currently an endangered species due to their vulnerability to land clearing practices and ecosystem imbalances. Statistically, each day between eight and 12 of these intelligent and sentient animals are killed or die as a result of deforestation and palm oil plantations.

The economic benefits of palm oil harvesting are also a strong factor which encourages Bornean governments to allow tree logging programs to continue with deforestation, despite the grave environmental implications associated with it. The profit of deforestation comes from the benefits of having access to cleared land to develop palm oil industries or mines, which then generate income for the government. The lack of a single government control over the entire island of Borneo contributes to problems such as government and industry corruption and the corruption inherent within Bornean governments encourages many important and grave issues to be purposely ignored and avoided. This continues to stimulate deforestation and unsustainable land use practices, with governments having complete disregard for protection of biodiversity, and complete priority placed on profit and capitalising on the natural resources of Borneo.

Therefore, due to the fundamental importance of the Bornean rainforests in maintaining ecological biodiversity and promoting environmental sustainability, consumers should consider the long term impacts of their product choices in relation to palm oil in commercial products, so that Borneo and its flora and fauna may be re-established, before the damage to this rich ecological network becomes irreversible.

References

Borneo Demographics. (2012, May 29). Retrieved from New World Encyclopedia: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Borneo

Butler, T. (2005, April 13). Deforestation in Borneo. Retrieved from Mongabay: http://news.mongabay.com/2005/04/deforestation-in-borneo/

DeckUp. (2012). Effects of Deforestation in Borneo. Retrieved from DeckUp: http://www.deckup.com.au/effects-of-deforestation-in-borneo

Lindsey, R. (2007, March 30). Tropical Deforestation. Retrieved from NASA Earth Observatory: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/Deforestation/

Oxford Advanced Dictionary. (2004). Oxford: British National Corpus.

Puay, L. (2004). Vanishing Forests. Great Britain: Raintree Publishers.

RSPO. (2015). RSPO. Retrieved from Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil: http://www.rspo.org/about

Say No to Palm Oil. (2015). Retrieved from Say No to Palm Oil: http://www.saynotopalmoil.com/

Stolle, F. (2014, June 29). Primary forest cover loss in Indonesia over 2000–2012. Retrieved from Nature Climate Change: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n8/full/nclimate2277.html

WorldWatch. (2015). Global Palm Oil Demand Fueling Deforestation. Retrieved from World Watch: http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6059

WWF. (2015). Forests. Retrieved from World Wildlife Fund: http://www.wwf.org.au/our_work/saving_the_natural_world/forests/

WWFGlobal. (2015). Threats to Borneo Rainforest. Retrieved from World Wildlife Fund: http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/borneo_forests/borneo_deforestation/

Yeo, S. (2013, July 18). 80% of Malaysian Borneo’s Rainforests Destroyed by Logging. Retrieved from Climate Home: http://www.climatechangenews.com/2013/07/18/80-of-malaysian-borneos-rainforests-destroyed-by-logging/

#Environment