Rainforests Chopped for Bio-Diesel

The world's biggest rainforest risks disappearing altogether


1.8 million hectares of rainforest are to be sacrificed to create Southeast Asia's largest oil-palm plantation, to supply the EU's increasing demand for bio-diesel, which is produced from oil palms. As fuel prices grow and energy resources are low, bio-diesel is seen as an environmentally-friendly alternative. But is it?

Environmental activists assess that more than 60 percent of Borneo's tropical rainforest has been damaged. This is mainly due to the forests' being illegally cut down or burnt to allow space for oil and timber plantations. According to the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF), an area equal to the size of three football stadiums disappears from the surface of the globe every minute.

Albertus Tijus, WWF's project co-ordinator in West Kalimantan province, said that more and more permits for setting up new plantations were being granted: "Palm oil is the biggest danger for our tropical rainforests.

After Sumatra, Kalimantan is now the main area for setting up new plantations. The investors come from China and Malaysia. Two years ago, they started setting up plantations on the 1.8 million hectares large area along the Indonesian-Malaysian border."

Threat of extinction

But at the beginning of this year, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei-Darussalam agreed to protect the so-called heart of Borneo. The region's forests are home to many species of animals, for example orang-utans, elephants and rhinoceroses, as well as plants, which are threatened with extinction. There are also more than 15,000 species of plants on the island. Moreover, every month, scientists discover an average of three new species.

Bambang Bider, the leader of the "The Heart of Borneo" environment project explained as he showed journalists around a huge forest clearing that it was being turned into a tree nursery: "Young plants from here will later be planted in a plantation. Before, there was a large rainforest here, but all the trees have been cut down to make way for this plantation."

Environment protectors fear that the world's biggest rainforest will be destroyed within a few years because more and more investors are trying to make money from the increasing demand for oil palm bio-diesel.

DW Staff (ah) (taken form http://www2.dw-world.de)