Causes of deforestation in Southeast Asia

After four billion years of organic evolution on this planet, life reached its greatest diversity and complexity in the tropical rain forest (Sponsel et al., 1996). Yet in recent decades this diversity has become endangered. This is due to the deforestation that has been at work for centuries and the rate of deforestation in the tropics is still increasing rapidly. According to Repetto, the current rate of deforestation has exceeded 0.4 hectares per second (Sponsel et al., 1996), and each hectare may contain millions of species. There are more and more species extinction from year to year. Thus, deforestation has become one of the major environmental issues that directly affect not only countries and locations, but also the earth as a whole. In general, we can classify the causes of the deforestation into three main groups, which are the timber industry, agriculture development or expansion and major development projects that are implemented by the local government.

Firstly, according to the UN’s Economics and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP), “Logging is undoubtedly the primary cause of degradation and indirectly of deforestation too (Sponsel et al., 1996).” Logging for export is a major factor of deforestation in Southeast Asia and it has been playing a significant role in Southeast Asian nations economic development. For example, in 1985, Malaysia, which was the largest exporter of tropical hardwood logs, exported 11.4 million cubic meters of logs (Sponsel et al., 1996). The revenue that was brought into Malaysia from this exported timber reached the value of RM1.6 billion (US$650 million) in 1985 (Hurst, 1990). The high revenue potential leads to illegal logging, which further destroys the forest area. Even though the Malaysia government has implemented a number of regulations to control logging operations, the timber extraction is still dominated by economic consideration. Thus, due to the economy benefit, logging is just a first step in the chain reaction of deforestation.

Secondly, the agriculture expansion is another major cause of forest clearance. Rural population growth and the promotion of cash crops for export are the underlying causes of demand for new land. As the population grows, large numbers of people will be seeking farming land and moving to the cities. For example, in Malaysia, forest clearance for agriculture development has been co-ordinate by the federal government’s Federal Land Development Agency (FELDA) since independence (Hurst, 1990). The main purpose of FELDA is to help provide land for the landless. They provide large areas of rubber estates or even now oil palm plantations to the landless as an agribusiness or commercial agriculture. The FELDA policies have created job opportunities for more than 500,000 people (Hurst, 1990). According to Marcoux (2000, June), oil palm plantations are a major catalyst of deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia. These two world’s biggest palm oil producers had about 6.7 million hectares of oil palm plantation in 2002 (Marcoux, 2000). Hence, the rapid expansion of agriculture will further clear-cut the forest and there will be one day when Malaysia is running out of land.

Thirdly, some major development projects that are implemented by the local government or some private agencies also contribute to the deforestation. The expansion of the road network is one such project that provides a significant effect to the forest. For example, the North-South Expressway (NSE) in Malaysia which is the longest expressway in Malaysia running from Bukit Hitam in Kedah to Johor Bahru in south Malaysia, opened up millions of kilometers of previously inaccessible forest to link up many major cities in western Peninsular Malaysia, acting as a ‘backbone’ of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Another development project is dam construction. For example, some of the largest dams that have been constructed in Thailand like Bhumibol (318 sq. km); Khao Leam (353 sq. km); Sirikit (260 sq. km); Sirindhorn (292 sq. km); Srinagarind (419 sq. km) and Ubolratana (410 sq. km) have collectively led to a total of 2052 sq, km of forest loss due to a deforestation (Hurst, 1990). The surface areas indicate how much forest has been destroyed. The construction of such dams also causes farmers to lose their lands, and as a result, the government needs to provide resettlement programs to find new lands for them. In the end, more forests will be clear-cut. Thus, these unavoidable rural development projects have brought a great “pain” to the forest, which is still being attacked.

In conclusion, as the population increases with the demand for land, a degree of forest destruction is inevitable. Furthermore, the timber industry, agriculture development and major development projects that are implemented by the governments have directly caused the deforestation. Thus, there is a need to consider the development solutions of the crisis in the social, environmental, economic and political aspects, or else it will bring serious consequences to the environment and human.

References

Hurst, P. (1990). Rainforest politics: Ecological destruction in

Southeast Asia. London: Zed Books Ltd.

Marcoux, A. (2000, June). Population and the environment: a review

and concepts for population programmes. Retrieved

March 9, 2008 from United Nations, Food and And Organization

Website:

http://www.fao.org/sd/wpdirect/wpan0050/htm

Sponsel, L. E., Thomas, N., & Bailey, R. C. (1996). Tropic

deforestation: The human dimension. New York:

Columbia University Press.

Zero waste and land filling

According to Collins (2002), the amount of household rubbish will double by the year 2020 and more than 40 million tonnes a year in the new European Union. To manage all this waste is quite a “headache” in every country all over the world. Singapore, as a small “Lion City,” is facing the same problem too. There are two waste disposal schemes proposed by the government in Singapore, which are land-filling and “zero waste.” In my opinion, the “zero waste” is more suitable in Singapore due to the limited land issue in Singapore.

Nowadays, we can notice that the government is promoting a “zero waste” scheme all over the place in Singapore. “Zero waste” is a clean environment process that promotes a “recycle,” “reuse,” or “repair” of material. By this “zero waste” scheme, we manage to minimize the amount of waste. For example, Britain is currently recycling 11% of household waste, burning 8% and dumping the rest, within six years of a change in policy Canberra is recycling 59% of its rubbish and Edmonton, Canada, has reached 70% (Collins, 2002). From this statistic, we can see that “zero waste” scheme plays an important role in reducing the waste. Thus, “zero waste” scheme is more suitable in Singapore.

Land-filling, which is the waste disposal scheme that currently is used in Singapore, is the scheme that is not environmentally friendly. It is because the government needs to provide huge area of land to bury or collect all the waste. With the increased percentage of waste, the government needs to find another side just for burying the rubbish. Singapore is a small island and we are not able to provide such a huge area to handle these wastes. Hence, land-filling is not suitable in Singapore with the limited resources of land in Singapore.
In conclusion, by comparing the applicability and suitability of both waste disposal schemes in Singapore, “zero waste” scheme is the most applicable and suitable scheme where no extra land is needed to handle the waste.

References

Collins, J. (2002, Oct 3rd). Radical plans for waste could herald a big clean-up. The Guardian Weekly. p.25

Cause of Deforestation in Southeast Asia (Essay - Review from draft 2)

After four billion years of organic evolution on this planet, life reached its greatest diversity and complexity in the tropical rain forest (Sponsel et al., 1996). Yet in recent decades this diversity has become endangered. This is due to the deforestation that has been work for centuries and the rate of deforestation in tropics is still increasing rapidly. According to Repetto, current rate of deforestation has exceeded 0.4 hectares per second (Sponsel et al., 1996), and each hectare may contain millions of species. There are more and more species extincting from year to year. Thus, deforestation has become one of the major environmental issues that directly affected not only countries and locations, but also a global perspective. In general, we can classify the causes of deforestation into three main groups, which are timber industry, agriculture development or expansion and major development projects that are implemented by the local government.

Firstly, according to the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (ESCAP), “Logging is undoubtedly the primary cause of degradation and indirectly of deforestation too (Sponsel et al., 1996).” Logging for export is a major factor of deforestation in Southeast Asia and it has been playing a significant role in Southeast Asian nation’s economic development. For example, in 1985, Malaysia is the largest exporter of tropical hardwood logs which had exported 11.4 million cubic meters of logs (Sponsel et al., 1996). The revenue that was brought into Malaysia from this exported timber had reached the value of RM1.6 billion (US$650 million) in1985 (Hurst, 1990). The high revenue leads to illegal logging which further destroys the forest area. Even though the local government has implemented a number of regulations to control a logging operation, but the timber extraction is still dominated by economic consideration. Thus, due to the economy benefit, logging is just a first step in the chain reaction of deforestation.

Secondly, the agriculture expansion is another major cause of forest clearance. Rural population growth and promotion of cash crops for export are the underlying causes of demand for new land. As the population grows, large numbers of people will be seeking farming land or moving to the cities. For example, in Malaysia, forest clearance for agriculture development has been co-ordinate by federal government, Federal Land Development Agency (FELDA) since independence (Hurst, 1990). The main purpose of FELDA is to help provide land for the landless. They provide large areas of rubber estates or even now oil palm plantations to the landless as an agribusiness or commercial agriculture. The FELDA policies had created job opportunities for more than 500,000 people and have been relocated in more than 100,000 family units (Hurst, 1990). According to Marcoux (2000, June), oil palm plantations are a major catalyst of deforestation in Malaysia and Indonesia. These two world’s biggest palm oil producers had about 6.7 million hectares of oil palm plantation in 2002(Marcoux, 2000). Hence, the rapid expansion of the agriculture will further clearly cut the forest and there will be one day where Malaysia is running out of land.

Thirdly, some of the major development projects that are implemented by the local government also contribute to the deforestation. The expansion of the road network is one of the projects that provide a significant effect to the forest. For example, North-South Expressway (NSE) in Malaysia which is the longest expressway in Malaysia running form Bukit Hitam in Kedah to Johor Bahru in south Malaysia, opened up millions of kilometres of previously inaccessible forest to link up many major cities in western Peninsular Malaysia, acting as a 'backbone' of the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Another development project is the dam construction. For example, some of the largest dam that had been constructed in Thailand like Bhumibol (318 sq. km); Khao Leam (353 sq. km); Sirikit (260 sq.km); Sirindhorn (292 sq.km); Srinagarind (419 sq. km) and Ubolratana (410 sq. km) (Hurst,1990). The surface areas indicate how much forest had been destroyed. Furthermore, the construction of the dams will cause farmers’ losing their lands and therefore government need to provide resettlement programmes to find new lands for them. As a result, more forests will be clearly cut. Thus, these unavoidable rural development projects have brought a great “pain” to the forest and it is still continuing “attacking” the forest.

In conclusion, as the population increase and with the demand of land, a degree of forest destruction is inevitable. Thus, timber industry, agriculture development and major development projects that are implemented by the local government directly caused the deforestation. Thus, there is a need to consider the development solutions of the crisis in the social, environmental, economic and political aspects, or else it will bring serious consequences to the environment and human.

Save Nature

Our planet earth cries out. Is anyone listening? Our failure to hear the cries has pre-destined our demise. Refuse to treat the planet earth the way it needs to be treated, and we seal our own fate. We have completely altered earth’s health, result from a course of growth, and development, and its ability to defend, or protect itself. In turn losing its ability to protect us, feed us and allow us to flourish. We were supposed to consider the planet, before we consider ourselves.

The planet “allows” us to exist here because of its own specific components, which we have basically destroyed, and keep destroying. Man made these decisions for totally selfish, self serving reasons. There was no board meeting for debate whether these choices were acceptable to earth. There was absolutely no consideration for earth whatsoever. People of earth were given life because of the Earth, and sun. Out utter indifference to that fact, is where the wrong path for mankind was chosen.

The planet earth provides us with every necessary component, nutrient, cure, and element to sustain life for millions of years, and beyond. Our lack of fore site, our sheer ignorance, and continued indifference has caused, and will continue to cause extreme permanent damage. We were supposed to live off the earth, and gear things in such a way as to allow the planet to flourish, in turn allowing us to flourish in harmony.

Gear your life around “Only What Grows from the Earth”. We already have all the replacements for everything from oil, to heating, to electric, etc. If our concentration were geared towards more land oriented production, to feed the planet, and replenishing the planet, we could survive, and Mother Earth would blossom and flourish. We have a vast array of options which would be beneficial for both human survival, and Earth’s preservation. We just need to wake up and realize each small family unit can make a huge difference by making all the necessary changes starting right at home.

So, care about our beautiful planet, and let our children, grandchildren, can look back in history, and be thankful that we corrected it before it was too late. Let’s “Get Up”, and fight for our Mother Earth.