Threats to the Jungles of Borneo

Posted on May 1, 2006

Andrew Harding at the BBC reports on several threats to the nature-rich jungles of Borneo. One threat is that the Indonesian government has announced that 30,000 hectares of the park are to be given over to logging and palm oil companies. The BBC says this equals 15% of the park's forests and that hundreds of orangutans will die as a result. But there is a much worse problem as the jungles are remove to make way for palm oil plantations.

Last year a monstrous scam was uncovered.
It involved creating the world's largest single plantation - the size of four million football fields - right in the middle of a rainforest that has survived many millions of years.
Much of the land chosen turned out to be unsuitable for plantations. It was too steep and too elevated. But that was never the point of the exercise.
The real plan was to chop down as much valuable hardwood as possible and sell it to China.
After all, why put plantations on Borneo's vast swathes of empty land when you can carve up the forests and make a fortune before you have even started? And, in the process, destroy one of the world's last great biological treasure houses.

The world's jungles are at risk no matter which continent you look at. The Bos UK Save the Orangutan website has an interesting feature called Create Rainforest. It discusses a unique reforestation concept where BOS is trying to create a sanctuary for orangutans, sunbears and other endangered species on Borneo.

During the last decades the once species-rich rainforest of Samboja Lestari was cleared and burnt down relentlessly. Nutrient-consuming elephant grass took over completely. What remained was an ecological waste land. Nowadays it is already visible that this doesn't have to stay - since 2001 BOS is creating new rainforest. An innovative concept of reforestation and protection is changing this area of over 16 mio sqm into a natural habitat again. In tropical Borneo plants grow much faster than in Europe. Already within a few years the first orang-utans can be released to share their freedom with other animals A nature reserve is being created for the permanent use of humans, animals and plants in Samboja Lestari ("eternal Samboja").

It sounds like a very innovative and hopeful project that can hopefully be duplicated elsewhere. But obviously it is best to keep the ancient jungles alive as long as possible.

EARTH
BORNEO