While deforestation in the Amazon, particularly in Brazil, has gotten a lot of attention in recent months, much of the world has overlooked how the process is happening in another one of the planet's most biodiverse rainforests: Borneo. This is not a uniquely Malaysian phenomenon (given that a good portion of the island is a part of Indonesia as well as, to a far smaller extent, Brunei), however logging is a major industry in both Sabah and Sarawak and has contributed to this destruction. I wanted to use my final cultural artifact to reaffirm the allure and importance of East Malaysia and attempt to connect this oft-forgotten bastion of bio-ecological, cultural, and linguistic diversity to a larger global context.
(Image source: Borneo, ravaged by deforestation, loses nearly 150,000 ...)
Borneo has reportedly lost upwards of half of its entire rainforest coverage over the past century, with most of this loss occurring in the past three decades and due to the rampant practice of logging and the pursuit of palm oil, a major industry on the island. In Malaysian Borneo, this impact is far larger, with an estimated 80% of the rainforest "degraded" by such logging practices. Sarawak in particular had the "fastest rate of deforestation" in the entire Asian continent as of 2012, which, accordingly, amounts to a real and grave problem for the people and wildlife living there. The gif below comes from a video recording of a local orangoutang in Borneo - one of the island's most prized possessions - confronting a bulldozer razing this entire section of forest.
Loss of land has also greatly effected indigenous peoples and has disproportionately rewarded a small circle of wealthy business moguls. The administrative government at the state level has been slow to implement laws to protect the environment or regulate these practices. The effects on a local level are catastrophic, and the unsustainable logging industry has purportedly been financed, at least in part, by large global banks such as HBSC.
(Image Source: New forest map for Sarawak reveals large-scale deforestation ...)
Despite all of this, deforestation has slightly declined in recent years. This can likely be attributed to a combination of different factors at both the local and global levels effecting industries reliant on logging, e.g. local outcry, pressure from the U.N., and changing global commercial flows. Sabah alone is home to upwards of 96 different languages, and its extremely rich and biodiverse rainforest is something I had the fortune to witness firsthand in my visit there last Fall. My Malay instructor this year, Melisa, is from Sarawak, and she has relayed anecdotes about the detrimental effects of logging and the land loss that has followed, as well as the complicity of some local officials and companies. When most people think of Malaysia, they think of the bustling city of Kuala Lumpur or the white-sand beaches and savory food of Penang, however there is another part of Malaysia beyond 'Malaya' that demands equal attention and admiration. The people were among the friendliest I have met in the world, and I think that this looming problem of deforestation is a global one, just as it is with Brazil. I hope this post has offered a modicum of insight into this issue. All things considered, the world cannot afford to lose such a natural habitat, just as the local Malaysians cannot either.
Sources:
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2012/11/03/log-tale ;
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130717173002.htm
https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/forests/deforestation_fronts2/deforestation_in_borneo_and_sumatra/
Comments
As a part of my senior thesis, I wrote about the effects of logging companies and other agricultural corporations on the indigenous people of Chile. So, I have an idea of what this must be like for the indigenous of Malaysia. I hope that there is some sort of system in place, hopefully, the UN if local governments can't come through, to enforce some change. I'm glad to hear that there has been some decrease in deforestation, but I know that it won't be enough to stop the problem. Very interesting post! Thank you for the information.
Great and informative post! I agree that we always tend to focus more on what happened to the Amazon rainforest and overlook the other deforestation around the world. Hopefully, more attention would be given to deforestation in Asia and especially the Borneo rainforest.