Borneo's forests could be destroyed within decade: WWF
Borneo's forests could be destroyed within decade: WWF
Agence France-Presse, Geneva
The island of Borneo in Southeast Asia could lose most of its forests in less than 10 years, with the destruction driven by rampant logging, fires and the encroachment of plantations, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) warned on Tuesday.
In a report entitled "Treasure Island at Risk," the WWF said deforestation on the world's third-largest island would seriously jeopardize the long-term survival of orangutans and pygmy elephants, as well as Borneo's future economic potential.
By 2020, the remaining populations of orangutans may be too small to be genetically viable due to fragmentation of their habitat into unconnected patches of forest, the WWF said.
The environmental organization said its findings tallied with a 2001 World Bank study warning that all lowland rain forests in Kalimantan -- the Indonesian part of Borneo -- would disappear by 2010, and predicted an uncertain future for the island's remaining forests, which are shared by Malaysia and Brunei.
Today, only half of Borneo's forest cover remains, down from 75 percent in the mid 1980s. Around 1.3 million hectares of forest are destroyed every year.
"The consequences of this scale of deforestation will not only result in a major loss of species but also disrupt water supplies and reduce future economic opportunities, such as tourism, and subsistence for local communities," said Chris Elliott, head of the WWF Global Forest Program.
The report said that there are about 2.5 million hectares of oil palm plantation in Borneo, and that the area is on the increase.
It also said that logging is still frequent in the national parks of Kalimantan, even though it is banned.
The WWF said it hoped Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia would work together to support an initiative aiming to conserve more than 22 million hectares of rain forest in an area known as the "Heart of Borneo" -- a quarter of the island's land.
It would help save Borneo from the ultimate threat of deforestation and increased impacts from droughts and fires, said the WWF.
The organization hailed as a good first step the recent closure of a key crossing point for illegal timber from Indonesia into Malaysia.
"It has become clear that without cooperation between Borneo's three nations, the fate of even the remotest parts of Borneo is uncertain," said Stuart Chapman, coordinator of the Heart of Borneo initiative.
More than 210 mammals, including 44 which are found nowhere else in the world, live on Borneo. Between 1994 and 2004 at least 361 new species were discovered and new ones are constantly being found.