Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tanjung Puting Na-
tional Park
4150 sq
km
One of the world's last great refuges of the orangutan
Wehea Forest
380 sq
km
Pristine rainforest, offering great hiking, managed using a community-
based conservation model
Despite the best efforts of local and international environmental groups, the govern-
ments that rule Borneo (except that of Brunei) tend to view rainforests as an impediment
to progress or as political spoils, with a handful of well-connected people deriving profits
from logging concessions granted without public oversight. The logging and oil-palm
businesses generate millions of dollars for the local economy and provide jobs, but they
have wreaked untold ecological damage. To learn more about the opposition perspective
on Sarawak's environmental record, see
www.stop-timber-corruption.org
.
Deforestation
Borneo suffers from one of the highest rates of deforestation on earth. In the mid-1980s,
about 75% of the island still had its original forest cover; by 2005, the figure was just
50%. Unless something is done, less than a third of the island will retain its forests by
2020. The WWF calculated that in 2005, Borneo was losing 2.5 hectares of rainforest per
minute - that comes to 1.5 sq km every hour. The main markets for Bornean wood are Ch-
ina and Japan.
Only a tiny fraction of Borneo's land is pro-
tected by law, and even less is subject to laws
that are systematically enforced. In recent
years, government pronouncements in Sabah
and Sarawak have been more attuned to inter-
national pressure, in part because there's not all
that much rainforest left to log, but allegedly
selective cutting is continuing in formerly pristine areas such as the Kelabit Highlands.
Despite this, remote Dayak populations are still being displaced (see
www.borneoproject.org
)
. But the news is not all bad. Sabah has been taking some con-
crete steps to improve forest conservation: in 2012, for instance, the state upgraded the
protection status of 700 sq km of forest near the Danum Valley.
In Kalimantan, which suffers from an almost complete lack of enforcement, illegal log-
ging even extends into national park lands. Some ostensibly protected areas, such as Kutai
Some species of tropical hardwood are so valuable
that a single tree can be worth US$50,000. Such
trees are sometimes selectively logged using heavy-
duty helicopters.
