Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Industrial Logging

Deforestation in general, started becoming popular in the mid 20th century because of the founding of rubber plantations. But these plantations had little impact on Borneo's rain forests at this time.
In the 1970's, industrial logging rose and Malaysia's forests grew more and more sparse . To top it off, the Indoneasian president, Suharto, gave out huge chunks of wilderness to army generals to help bond their relationships with each other. During the 1980's, logging aggradized significantly because more roads led to abundant land for developers to get their hands on, and Indonesia's immagration system was booming, importing more than 18,000 people a year to settle in this region. These people were sent to places that were inadequate for proper farming so many were forced to work for logging companies. The time period between 80's and the 90's was one of the most damaging all of Borneo and the world had ever seen. 60-240 cubic meters being harvested per hectare in Borneo compared to the 23 cubic meters per hectare in the Amazon. A hectare is a unit of area used in the metric system that is equal to 10,000 square meters. More timber at this time was being exported from Borneo than Latin America and Africa combined. In Kalimantan, the lower half of Borneo, almost 80% of its lowlands were being shredded into pieces and used for timber.

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