Borneo Rain Forest on Verge of Total Destruction

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WORLDWIDE FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS

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Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org

http://forests.org/ -- Forest Conservation Archives

http://forests.org/web/ -- Discuss Forest Conservation

12/16/99

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY

The battle to save some portion of Borneo as intact, contiguous

rainforest appears to have been lost. Malaysia and Indonesia have

essentially destroyed this globally significant rainforest.

Consumers of tropical timbers; i.e. buyers of plywood for new home

construction in the U.S., are ultimately responsible. Predatory

logging companies and complicit consumers are bent upon repeating

this pattern of disastrous tropical land management in most of the

World's remaining tropical wildernesses. This must not be allowed to

happen. The following account of new scientific research provides

persuasive evidence that forest sustainability is primarily

determined by conditions over large scales-such as bioregions and

landscapes.

g.b.

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Title: Borneo rain forest on verge of total destruction

Source: Environment New Network, http://www.enn.com/

Date: December 13, 1999

Byline: John Roach

A rare tropical rain forest, where reproduction of the trees is

intricately linked to the arrival of the El Ni¤o weather phenomenon,

faces imminent death due to increased logging and human-intensified

climate change.

The loss of the forest, located on the island of Borneo and regarded

as a unique ecosystem, would put a huge dent in the global economy.

Timber exports contribute $8 billion annually to the Indonesian

economy and provide 80 percent of the plywood used in the United

States home building industry.

"Degradation of dipterocarp forests will have repercussions both in

Bornean terrestrial ecosystems and in regional economies with global

implications in as yet unforeseen ways," researchers, led by

ecologist Lisa Curran at the University of Michigan, write in the

Dec. 10 issue of Science.

Dipterocarps are the main family of rain forest canopy trees in

Indonesian Borneo. The trees synchronize their reproduction, called

masting, to the onset of the El Ni¤o Southern Oscillation, which

occurs about once every four years.

"Climatic conditions of an El Ni¤o year trigger simultaneous fruiting

in dipterocarps and are essential for regional seed production," she

said. "It's like Thanksgiving in the forest."

Wild boar, orangutans, parakeets, jungle fowl, partridges and other

animals congregate to stuff themselves. Local villagers collect

baskets of seeds called illipe nuts to sell as a cash crop. Yet,

since so much seed is produced, there is still enough leftover to

germinate and produce a carpet of new seedlings.

The problem, the researchers discovered, is that intensive logging on

the island around the Gunung Palung National Park over the past

decade has reduced seed production from 175 pounds per acre in 1991

to 16.5 pounds per acre in 1998, even though 1998 was a major El Ni¤o

year.

According to the research, logging appears to reduce the local

density and biomass of mature trees, reduces the spatial extent of

masting and alters the forest's response to El Ni¤o by disrupting

soil conditions or causing extended drought stress.

"Even though the park is supposedly off-limits to logging, the forest

is losing the ability to regenerate itself," said Curran. Seed

predators, who can not find food outside the park, move inside the

park to eat the dipterocarp seeds before they germinate.

In 1998 the scenario worsened when massive forest fires on nearby

logging plantations destroyed an area the size of Costa Rica, brought

pollution and intensified El Ni¤o's drought, killing the few

remaining dipterocarp seedlings.

"It's very sad, but unless the Indonesian government implements

sustainable forestry practices, creates financial incentives to

harvest responsibly and prevents clearing and burning for industrial

plantations, this ecosystem will be unable to recover," said Curran.

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