Rabu, 26 September 2012

Deforestation in Borneo

Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered with dense rainforests, but along with its tropical lowland and highland forests, there has been extensive deforestation in the past sixty years. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of Borneo underwent a dramatic transition. They were levelled at a rate unparalleled in human history, burned, logged and cleared, and commonly replaced with agricultural land, or palm oil plantations. Half of the annual global tropical timber acquisition currently comes from Borneo. Furthermore, palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Much of the forest clearance is illegal.