Vanishing Borneo: Saving One of the World’s Last Great Places

Borneo’s magnificent rain forest is being decimated to make way for oil palm plantations. Consumers of the countless products made with palm oil, from toothpaste to chocolate bars, hold the key to protecting the most ancient forest on earth.

Have you wondered about the forest that still has a potential to be lungs world? Then I discovered Alex Shoumatoff article about Saving One of the World's Last Great Place. By this article we know that there is still a potential forest but its existence has been threatened. Rain forests in Borneo that become the lungs world begin to be degraded by palm oil plantations and susceptible to burning.

Oil palm plantation activities often have particular impacts on environmental sustainability. As we know that Borneo rain forest is decimated to make way for palm oil because it is the second-most important oil of the modern consumer in society, Indonesia and Malaysia choose palm oil as their economic source. Indonesia, for instance, has more than 2 million small landholders growing about 40 percent of its palm oil. Deforestation that occurred in Borneo is the highest on the planet and into the history. Oil palm cultivation is done by mono-culture system. It will cause the loss of biodiversity and natural vulnerability such as declining land quality, erosion, and pests and plant diseases.

Drying peatlands also be vulnerable to fires, often set by farmers clearing forests for oil palm. The fires release the carbon event more rapidly. Indonesia’s tropical peatlands are large-scale climate bombs. In 1997 when a pall of smoke from peat fires in Kalimantan and occurred again in 2003 and 2005. In 2015, a large number of forest fires caused severe social, economic and environmental damage across the archipelago, as well as massive greenhouse gas emissions with a global impact.Central Kalimantan was among the provinces the hardest hit. Fires are not an uncommon occurrence, but this particular year was the worst in nearly two decades. As a result of this deforestation, Indonesia was threatened by the loss of biodiversity from tropical rain forest ecosystems. Also causes loss of cultural communities around the forest.

This impact can be avoided by using degraded land for sustainable oil palm plantations instead of using productive forests and peatlands. If we only use degraded land, then the impact of biodiversity is smaller. We can protect biodiversity by stopping the conversion of natural forest to palm oil. We can protect the remaining natural forest on the slopes and sides of the river, for example, regenerate when needed. To avoid land erosion due to the expansion of oil palm plantations, one way to protect food land by making it a sustainable food farm, the government should be able to provide protection for land accompanied by incentives to prevent the land from being converted into oil palm plantations.

In this reflection article, I also wanna share my short journey to Yosemite National Park in San Fransisco, California. On April 4th, 2018. YSEALI EWC Fellows and I visited Yosemite National Park in California. We converged a reservoir in the middle of national park. This reservoir is marked by 100 meters of O'Shaughnessy Dam which collected clean water and melted snow around Hetch Hetchy. The idea of building a dam began in 1903.Dr.Steve Shakelton (Faculty of Engineering, University of California at Merced) shared a story about how people in San Fransisco build a dam for water suplies. Although there are too many conflicts about the planned construction of this reservoir because it will disrupt the Yosemite ecosystem. Shouldn't the national park be truly protected because the forest is surrounded and will not be touched in any way. But we learned that by creating this dam, the state of California had transferred a portion of the money generated from the contribution of the dam to regulating the "symbiotic relationship" between humans and nature. So that it is enough to cover the costs of protecting national parks because the park provides humans with the services of the ecosystem. So actually, we cannot take the human aspect completely from one side. Human are also part of nature. By this trip we know how people trying hard to appreciate the nature and UNLEARN that human is not a problem and how the system is made by humans to improve and make sacrifices for development.

Then, the question is, what are the correlation between my exprerience in Yosemite National Park and Borneo rainforests which treatened by palm oil and fire ?

In simply thought, we can adopt the Yosemite National System in Borneo Forest, as we know that causes of flammable peatlands due to dry peatlands. With the dam and blocking canal in peatlands, we can minimize the occurrence of fires caused by many things. Construction of canal blockings, aims to hold water out of peat so that the peat remains wet. In principle, the canal bulkhead does not have a large discharge, but only in the form of overflow. With the presence of these canals, the decrease in water level on peatland can be prevented and the surrounding peatland will wet and difficult to burn.

For further information please visit https://e360.yale.edu/features/vanishing-borneo-saving-one-of-worlds-last-great-places-palm-oil