Deforestation in Borneo: Why You Should Care

When you think "rainforest", what countries and regions of the world come to mind? The Amazon rainforest, with its piranhas and pythons? Maybe the Congo's rainforest, and the endangered wild chimpanzees? Do Borneo's rainforests come to mind? Probably not.

Borneo is the third-largest island in the world. Most of southern Borneo belongs to Indonesia. Most of northern Borneo is part of Malaysia. Borneo is also home to the small nation of Brunei. Located between China and Australia, the island of Borneo used to be a major trade center. Today, however, the people of Borneo are desperately poor. It is a combination of poverty and very bad governmental policy that has led to Borneo's devastating deforestation.

Biodiversity in Borneo's rainforests

Borneo once had some of the most dense and diverse rainforests of Southeast Asia. Its rainforests are the home of the world's largest flower, the world's largest carnivorous plants, and the world's largest orchid. The fauna include flying lizards, flying squirrels, flying frogs, and flying snakes. There are sun bears, leopards, gibbons, monkeys, and elephants in Borneo's rainforests (Source: National Geographic, 11/08).

But perhaps the most famous resident of Borneo's quickly shrinking rainforests is the orangutan, the primate considered second only to chimpanzees in their kinship to human beings, the primate Jane Goodall recently stated she was most worried about in terms of its survival of the current era of deforestation (Source: National Public Radio, Talk of the Nation, 11/14/08). "Orang utan" in Malay means "person of the forest". This "person"'s days could be limited, as could its rainforests; worldwide, orangutan population is down 92% from the early 20^th century (Source: Honolulu Zoo).

Disappearing rainforests

In the past two decades, roughly 2 million acres per year of Borneo's rainforests were logged or burned (Source: National Geographic, 11/08). In the early days of Borneo's deforestation, it was mostly the logging industry that profited as rainforests were harvested for Europe and America's booming housing market. Strip mining was also a culprit in the trend of deforestation.

Recently, however, Borneo has turned to burning down its rainforests to clear the way for palm oil plantations. Palm oil trees create highly-profitable palm oil - amongst the places you will find palm oil are in baked goods, instant noodles, baby formula, cake mixes, French fries, and candy bars (Source: American Palm Oil). Palm oil is also used to create biodiesel; using corn for biodiesel is turning out to not be sustainable environmentally or economically, so palm oil has become the new favorite source of biodiesel. But considering the plight of Borneo's rainforests, palm oil might also turn out to be unsustainable.

Environmental impact of deforestation

Due to the burning of its rainforests - and in particular the peat swamp forests of Borneo, which naturally trap huge amounts of carbon dioxide - Indonesia has the unfortunate distinction of being ranked third in the world for the production of greenhouse gases. Only China and the United States produce more greenhouse gases than Indonesia.

But although the environmental consequences of one island's disappearing rainforests could affect the whole world, Borneo sees little economic alternatives to logging and growing palm oil. Its rainforests are its cash crop, and the removal of rainforests make room for its other cash crop of palm oil plantations. In fact, Indonesia and Malaysia account for 86% of the world's palm oil production (Source: National Geographic, 11/08). Although an orangutan might be cute, for the people of Borneo, the survival of the orangutan does not pay for health care or build schools: palm oil, however, does.

The economic rock; the environmental hard place

There has been some discussion about paying developing nations not to cut down their rainforests in a worldwide bartering system of "credits" for carbon dioxide production. This proposal, however, has been met with widespread criticism. Some of the criticism comes from western leaders who don't see the point in paying nations for inactivity, but some of the criticism comes from environmental groups who see opportunities for corruption in already notoriously corrupt nations.

The bottom line, however, is that nations like Borneo cut down their rainforests for economic reasons, not because they hate orangutans or are oblivious to the multiplying environmental effects of deforestation. While it remains the best economic choice to log or burn rainforests, rainforests will be logged or burned. Only when a new economic model arises which rewards economies for its environmental sustainability will the burning of Borneo's rainforests stop.