Deforestation, Poaching & Wildfires

Over the decades, the Bornean and Sumatran rainforests have steadily degraded and perished, resulting in the serious loss of orangutan habitat. Around the 1960s and the 1970s, these tropical rainforests were logged during the plywood boom (see image right) and many were then converted into paper&pulp plantations and transmigration areas during the 1980s and 1990s. Since the turn of the century, the remaining rainforests are further threatened by the oil palm cultivation boom. Currently, timber extraction and agribusiness – both legal and illegal – are the main causes of deforestation and orangutan habitat loss.

Historically, both forest exploitation (for timber) as well as forest conversion (for coffee, paper & pulp, rubber, tea, etc) have been the main causes of orangutan habitat loss in Borneo and Sumatra. For instance, the habitat of the Bornean Orangutan was mainly replaced by grassland/shrubland or oil palm – both commercial and smallholder plantations – between 2001-2016 (see the image above). But in Sumatra, home of the Sumatran orangutan and the Tapanuli orangutan, their habitat was mostly replaced by commercial and smallholder paper & pulp and oil palm plantations.

>>MAIN TEXT<< Today, poaching orangutans for bushmeat and the pet trade are the main illegal contributors for the decline of orangutan populations throughout Borneo and Sumatra.

bushmeat remains to be a serious issue >>MORE<<.

The pet trade is >>MORE<<.

MAIN TEXT<<

Climate change …

Slash-and-burn is another important cause of wildfires. >>MORE<<

• Slash-and-burn Farming Method In Western Borneo Under Analysis (2007)
• Slash-and-burn a way of life on Indonesia’s Sumatra (2013)
• “Slash and burn” works, given time and space (2016)
• The search for a sustainable alternative to slash-and-burn agriculture in the World’s rain forests: the Guama Model and its implementation (2021)