Throughout history, Borneo was covered with dense, impenetrable tropical forest, home to countless species of flora and fauna, acting as a stronghold for hundreds of endemic species found no-where else on Earth.  Throughout the last two decades of the twentieth century, economic growth in Malaysia and Indonesia, along with an increased domestic and international demand for timber and palm oil in particular, has caused the rapid loss of habitat across Borneo.

Dipterocarp forests

Although globally rare, most forests in Borneo are predominantly comprised of trees from the family Dipterocarpaceae. These dipterocarp, 'two-winged' fruit trees are characterized by having large canopies and by their massive height, reaching up to 80 m. There are nine genres (and approximately 385 species) of dipterocarp trees, making unique, biologically important and ecologically fragile forest ecosystems.

One of the most striking and ecologically significant characteristics of dipterocarp forests is their reliance on El Niño events for triggering their reproductive cycle. Occurring every 3-4 years, the whole forest blossoms and then fruits at the same time in an event known as 'masting'. Every tree in an area exceeding 350 million acres may synchronize this phenomenon, with up to 120 fruits on an individual tree. In one of these masting events, the whole forest is vibrantly coloured with innumerable flowers simultaneously opening. This whole process is believed to have evolved as a strategy to 'starve out' seed predators between the masting events, then swamping them with simultaneous mast fruiting, allowing the maximum number of seeds to germinate. Masting is a crucial process for forest regeneration in dipterocarp habitats.

Logging

Currently, Borneo extracts more timber from its forests than Latin America and Africa combined, and is worth in excess of $10 billion annually. Tropical timbers from Borneo are exported around the world, providing (for example) the US with over 80% of its plywood. The seeds themselves represent an important (and sustainable) source of income for local communities, generating in the region of $25 million on an annual basis but this is now being superseded by the more profitable, large-scale timber extraction being carried out by large companies in the region. In addition to major environmental losses, the destruction of these dipterocarp forests would result in significant damage to Malaysia's and Indonesia's economies.

Through intense and indiscriminate logging, dipterocarp forests have been affected not only directly through the loss of trees but also through the disturbance of the mast fruiting phenomenon itself, through soil disturbance and reduced tree densities. Between 1990 and 2000, seed production dropped in some forests from 175lb per acre to less than 16lb, meaning not only significant disturbances in the forest 'life cycle' itself but also a drastically-reduced food source for many species of forest animals.

Fires

In the last decade, Borneo hit the global headlines because of the massive forest fires which swept over the island, destroying forests, killing countless animals and affecting the health of people as far away as mainland Asia. Most of these fires were in Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo), but Aqua-Firma did witness fires too in Sabah and Peninsula Malaysia. These fires start both naturally where deforestation has caused an unnaturally dry combination of forest and deforested land; and as a result of fires to clear land for the development of oil palm plantations and smaller scale agriculture.

In Kalimantan, the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) estimated the loss to Indonesia's economy as exceeding $9 billion, with the island being the one of the world's largest polluters (in terms of carbon emissions) during these fires. In 2001, a link was recognised between areas of forest clearance and the occurrence of these fires, with the incidence of fires being positively associated with areas of forest clearance. Tropical dipterocarp forests do not usually burn, due to low fuel availability and the inflammable nature of most of the forest, but after deforestation and slash and burn activities, degraded forests are highly susceptible. The heavy smoke emitted by these fires has even been shown to inhibit precipitation (rainfall), permitting the fires to burn uninterrupted.

Oil Palm

Palm oil is the edible oil, made from the pulp of the oil palm fruit (Elaeis guineensis). When compared to products such as rapeseed, corn and soy, oil palm is the world's most productive oilseed and is therefore of high economic importance to those nations growing it. Palm oil is commonly used as a cooking oil, both in Asia and Africa and is exported around the world, where it is used in a wide range of products such as margarine, baked goods, sweets, detergents and lipsticks. It is estimated that palm oil can be found in one in ten supermarket products. There is also an increasing market for vegetable oil as a renewable fuel (biofuel), in response to the need to reduce global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. More than half of the oil palm production from Malaysia and Indonesia originates from the clearance of lowland dipterocarp forests (UNEP, 2007).

The demand for oil palm continues to rise, resulting in more tropical forest being cleared in order to establish new plantations. The loss of forest habitat for practices such as developing oil palm plantations has multiple effects on the environment:

- Significant increases in harmful 'greenhouse' gas emissions, accounting for up to 50% of the anthropogenic (human-caused) CO2 emissions in some regions and around 20% globally.

- Habitat destruction - used by often-rare species such as the Bornean orangutan and Sumatran rhinoceros.

- Increased rate of species extinctions.

In addition to direct environmental impacts, local, indigenous communities are outcompeted, lose land and are often displaced by the development of large, multi-national oil palm plantations.

Between them, Indonesia and Malaysia account for 83% of the global production of palm oil and in 2008, Malaysia produced over 17 million tonnes of palm oil on 4.5 million hectares of land.  Whilst Malaysia produces less palm oil than neighbouring Indonesia, it is in fact the world's largest exporter of palm oil. About 60% of palm oil shipments from Malaysia head to the United States, the European Union, China, Pakistan and India.

The seemingly-relentless expansion of plantation acreage represents one of the most significant threats to orangutans and their forest habitats. Such conversion is now the highest cause of permanent rainforest loss in Malaysia and Indonesia. The huge demand for palm oil means that it is extremely difficult to regulate and limit the spread of plantations and due to the fact that palms do not begin to produce a crop for five years after the area is planted, plantations tend to arise on newly-cleared forest land, rather than abandoned agricultural land, as the potential to sell the timber to subsidize these first non-productive years is a strong incentive.



Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/extent-of-deforestation-in-borneo-1950-2005-and-projection-towards-2020

This chart shows the increasing levels of deforestation (with green representing forest cover) since 1950 and the expected future rates of habitat loss. Following the second world war, an increased global economic drive caused the loss of large areas of both tropical lowland and montane forest habitats. These vitally important ecosystems have been intensively logged and subsequently planted with palm oil

For more information, please follow the link:

The Last Stand of the Orangutan (report)
http://www.unep.org/grasp/docs/2007Jan-LastStand-of-Orangutan-report.pdf/

Borneo forest and habitat destruction - deforestation climate change dipterocarp trees El Nino - timber logging - fires - oil palm - species loss extinction orangutan orang-utan UNEP - Aqua Firma Sabah Malaysia Indonesia South East Asia