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.
