Causes of Deforestation in Southeast Asia version 2

Deforestation is a process that involves a competition amongst different land users for scarce resources, a process exacerbated by counter-productive policies and weak institutions. Nowadays, deforestation has become one of the major environmental issues that not only directly affected countries and locations, but also a global perspective. In general, we can say that deforestation have a direct causes form population growth, commercial agriculture and infrastructure development.

Firstly, a growing population in Southeast Asian is the most important cause that underlying tropical deforestation. Southeast Asian nations with 570 million in population has lead to the facts that 570 million people requiring food, shelter, paper, water, wood and all others that come from the forests.

Secondly, commercial agriculture can directly result in deforestation. Normally, a commercial or plantation agriculture is often agribusiness practiced by corporations. For example, oil palm plantations are a major catalyst of deforestation in Indonesia and Malaysia. These two world’s biggest palm oil producers had about 6.7 million hectares of oil palm plantation in 2002.

Thirdly, infrastructure development is also result in deforestation. The construction of new roads has a great impact on the forest. For example, North-South Expressway (NSE) in Malaysia which is the longest expressway in Malaysia with the total length of 966 km (600 miles) running form Bukit Hitam in Kedah near the Malaysia-Thailand border to Johor Bahru in south Malaysia. This expressway opened up millions of square kilometres of previously inaccessible forest to link up many major cities and towns in western Peninsular Malaysia, acting as the 'backbone' of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. As a result, more secondary roads that penetrate deeper into the forest eventually producing a wide swath of deforested land on either side of the road.

In conclusion, deforestation is the product of the integration of many environmental, social, economic, cultural, and political forces at work in many regions. Thus, without proper solution, it will bring serious consequences for the environment.