Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Forest cover
0
500
250
mi
25500km
0
SABAH
Betung Kerihun
National Park
BRUNEI
SARA WAK
RAWAK
KALIMANT AN
1950
1985
2020 (Projected)
Figure 16-22
This map sequence demonstrates the rapid rate at which Borneo' s forests are disappearing.
Think of the hundreds of plant and animal species that will become extinct with this rampant
destruction. From George White, Joseph P . Diamond, Elizabeth Chacko, and Michael Bradshaw , Essen-
tials of W orld Regional Geography , 2nd edition, 2011, Figure 5-10, p. 148. Originally rendered in color.
Printed with permission of McGraw-Hill.
poor logging practices and over-logging. A variety
of development projects such as palm oil planta-
tions have also contributed to forest losses. Illegal
logging is rampant in all designated forest envi-
ronments. Many experts have said that Indonesian
logging practices are not conducive to sustaining
its forests.
Fire has been a major destructive force. As of
1997, according to official estimates, fire had swept
through more than 198,000 acres (80,000 ha)
in Kalimantan, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and West
Papua. In 1982 to 1983 a blaze eradicated more
than 9 million acres (3.6 million ha). V ast areas
of Kalimantan, with its underground coal de-
posits, still burn. A blackened wasteland is the
result (see Figure 5-8). The blazes reach tempera-
tures that roast the subsoil and kill off root sys-
tems and microorganisms to a depth of 6.6 feet
(2 m). Y ou can walk on this smoldering land-
scape and have the soles of your shoes melt. This
is what happened to me! Forest fires in Indonesia
often affect the air as far north as mainland
Southeast Asia and the Philippines, where visibil-
ity has been cut to 50 feet (15 m) and the sun
seems to disappear. Satellite photos reveal that
many of these fires are deliberately set by logging
and plantation companies.
Fires have often been blamed on shifting culti-
vators who set fire to their plots before planting
them. However, this claim is misleading because
there are very few shifting cultivators left in In-
donesia. Moreover, through generations of fire use
and management, they are skilled fire users who
rarely produce uncontrollable fires. T To fault these
poor and powerless agriculturalists is convenient
for those authorities who want to steer the blame
away from deeper underlying causes that are em-
bedded in a nexus of influences linking powerful
political and commercial interests. The Kalimantan
peat project provides an illustration.
The Kalimantan peat swamp project dates
from 1995 when the Indonesian government
decided to develop 2.5 million acres of peat swamp
(1 million ha) in central Kalimantan to grow rice
and settle 1.5 million migrants from Java. By 1997,
it had become a logging free-for-all as illegal logging
operations, in connivance with transmigration
program managers, stripped the area of its valuable
timber. Fire was used to clear the land. Out of
control, it became one of the largest conflagrations
in all of Borneo.
The prospect of work drew thousands of new
migrants into the region, while the livelihoods of the
local Dayaks were destroyed by the environmental
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