Malaysia leads way in study of deforestation

Ecologists use project to devise guidelines on land conversion.

Natasha Gilbert

Ecologists in Malaysia will study a forest as it

is converted into an oil palm plantation.SAEED KHAN/AFP/Getty Images

As Malaysia prepares to convert around 7,000 hectares of forest into an oil-palm plantation,
ecologists are starting one of the biggest environmental projects ever run.

The ten-year-long Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems project will be launched on 29

January in the forests of the Maliau Basin on the island of Borneo, where the study is based.

It is being funded with 30 million ringgits (US$10 million), from Sime Darby, a Malaysia-
based company involved in palm-oil production, and will look at changes to biodiversity and
the resources and processes provided by the ecosystem as the forest is logged and replanted
with oil palms.

"We are covering such a wide variety of questions," says Rob Ewers, an ecologist at Imperial
College London and the project's scientific director. "Other projects have mainly focused on a
single issue such as trees or biodiversity."

For instance, the project will look at which animal species survive in a forest as the level of
logging intensifies until the land is fully converted into an oil-palm plantation. Researchers
will also investigate how wide the riparian zone the interface between land and rivers
needs to be so that the water is not polluted by eroded soil and fertilizers. They will also study
how patches of conserved forest totalling 750 hectares contribute to the environmental effects
of the logging.

Government backing
The local Malaysian government owns the land and decided to convert the forest into an oil-
palm plantation to bring in extra income, says Ewers. It has strong ties with the science
community and has agreed to collaborate on the project by conserving the patches of forest.
A main aim of the study is to develop guidelines on how to design and manage oil-palm
plantations to minimize the environmental impacts.

"We want to use the data to optimally design future forest clearance for agricultural income
and biodiversity. There is always a trade-off. But how can we design the landscape so as to
maximize income and minimize environmental costs?" asks Ewers.

Researchers have already begun sampling birds and will begin to do the same for insects in
February. Logging is due to start in the second half of the year, after which the oil palm will
be planted.

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Tim Killeen, an ecologist with Conservation International, a not-for-profit environmental

group, says that he is "glad to see that someone is doing this study".

Killeen says that in the past, conservation efforts have mainly focused on creating protected
areas, and that attention now needs to be paid to the remaining unprotected forests that are
going to be exploited.

"We are expanding our vision to look beyond natural ecosystems and towards improving
functional landscapes so they are not just making food, for example, but also providing
ecosystem services. This kind of study looks at that question in a well organized way," he
says.

Comments

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#17723

Come on, palm oil is destroying Borneo and killing orangutans and taking away the
homes and livelihood of the indigenous people. It is so NOT green and you know it!
It's a monoculture, a very limited ecosystem.

o Report this comment

o 2011-01-29 12:08:17 PM

o Posted by: L.A. Penney

 #17727

Nice work.
I am suggesting that,every eco system is not only responsible for its own location.Each
and every piece of Eco-system has its own inductive remote effects & responsiblites in
their neighbouring locations. So according to this concept , plantation of such huge
palm kingdom may surely affects it surroundings-It may even cause seasonal
changes.eg:- It may shift wind directions ,Overall-Humudity level, ground water
level,etc.so try to keep in sense that, such mutational change may alter the Eco-
Genomics.But using of such uncovered area for economic purpose is
appreciatable.Thank u
~Guhan,Bio-Technologist-India.

o Report this comment

o 2011-01-29 06:55:36 PM

o Posted by: guhan singh

#17738

Around 90% of the global supply of palm oil comes from Indonesia and Malaysia, and
this has come at a tremendous cost. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra are being
burned to the ground-- releasing so much carbon into the atmosphere that Indonesia
now ranks only behind China and US in carbon emissions-- and it is barely
industrialized. The UNEP estimates that the forests of Indonesia are being cleared at a
rate of 6 football fields per minute every minute of every day.

The palm oil industry is guilty of the most heinous ecological atrocities imaginable,
including the systematic genocide of orangutans. The forests of Borneo and Sumatra
are the only place where these gentle, intelligent creatures live, and the cultivation of
palm oil has directly led to the brutal deaths of thousands of individuals as the industry
has expanded into previously undisturbed areas of rainforest.

When the forest is cleared, adult orangutans are typically shot on sight. These
peaceful, sentient beings are beaten, burned, mutilated, tortured and often eaten.
Babies are torn off their dying mothers so they can be sold on the black market as
illegal pets to wealthy families who see them as status symbols of their own power and
prestige. This has been documented time and again.

If nothing is done to protect orangutans, they will be extinct in just a few years. Visit
the Orangutan Outreach website to learn more: www.redapes.org

Orangutan Outreach
redapes.org
Reach out and save the orangutans!
 o Report this comment

o 2011-01-30 03:07:30 PM

o Posted by: Orangutan Outreach

#17740

The destruction of orangutan habitat and murder of these animals is deplorable.

Similarly deplorable was the clearing in western countries for their sheep and cattle
populations and to produce feed for their pig and chicken sheds. Globally, the
livestock to wildlife biomass ratio is running at about 7 to 1 but most
environmentalists are deliberately blind to their own food impacts. Minimising our
impacts isn't rocket science, but almost all environmentalists park their beliefs by the
door every time they sit down to a meal.

o Report this comment

o 2011-01-30 04:20:50 PM

o Posted by: Geoff Russell

#17753

I have actually been out to Borneo on fieldwork, and I have seen these plantations etc
first-hand.
The problem out there is that the plantation owners use nefarious means in order to
expand their plantations. They gradually expand their plantations into protected ares
and no one does anything about it. The officials out there still work on bribes, so if
you have enough money, you can do what you like!
Most of the plantations I saw were owned by the Chinese, rather than by indigenous
Malaysians, and this has meant that they have moved native people out of their
ancestral homes into these horrid little purpose built shed-like houses that are laid out
to give the feel of a military base, and no one can do anything about it because they
don't have the money to protest to government officials.
Yes, the local people rely on the plantations for a source of income, but that may be
mainly because all the natural resources of the area have been destroyed when planting
these areas!
Plus there is also a problem with invasive species that were brought in along with the
oil palms from Africa... I saw huge mats of water hyacinths in the river near where I
was staying, which are no native to Malaysia and I wonder what effect that has on the
local wildlife as well? There are most likely african insect species that have invaded
Borneo and mainland Malaysia, and I wonder if this will be looked at during this study
too?

o Report this comment

 o 2011-01-31 12:08:24 PM

o Posted by: Laura McMonagle

#17791

The impacts of conversion of Malaysia's tropical forests to palm plantations clearly

negative for the global climate, catastrophic for orangutans are sufficiently know
already. The described project is inexcusable just a "cover", a "scientific figleaf" --
for still more destruction and exploitation of this critically engangered habitat. The
inescapable conclusion from what we already know is that such forest/plantation
conversions must cease and must be reversed.

o Report this comment

o 2011-02-02 11:06:35 AM

o Posted by: Howard Bernstein

#17823

Preservation of forest in patches cant conserve biodiversity and it is more over a

dilemma to fulfil demand of human keeping flora and fauna of forest on side by.

o Report this comment

o 2011-02-02 11:17:00 PM

o Posted by: Ranjeet Singh Mahla

#25249

>>As Malaysia prepares to convert around 7,000 >>hectares of forest into an oil-palm
plantation

This is just deforestation, plain and simple. Even if they "convert" it into an oil palm
plantation, most of the flora and fauna that call the place home will die. And any data
gathered may not be all that valuable because it pertains to a small locality. And since
this is funded by the company that's cutting the trees, how can the data be trusted
anyway?

o Report this comment

o 2011-07-15 08:09:07 AM

o Posted by: Lee Grant

#27922
 Most of the plantations I saw were owned by the Chinese, rather than by indigenous
Malaysians, and this has meant that they have moved native people out of their
ancestral homes into these horrid little purpose built shed-like houses that are laid out
to give the feel of a military base, and no one can do anything about it because they
don't have the money to protest to government officials.
tipy

o Report this comment

o 2011-10-16 11:02:02 AM

o Posted by: marek kowal

#29341

"We are expanding our vision to look beyond natural ecosystems and towards
improving functional landscapes so they are not just making food, for example, but
also providing ecosystem services. This kind of study looks at that question in a well
organized way," he says."

How is this working out?

Sony Cyber-Shot DSC-HX7V Digital Still Camera

o Report this comment

o 2011-11-02 12:38:35 PM

o Posted by: Katrina orr

#40133

One of the biggest drivers of forest loss in Malaysia and Indonesia is palm oil and over
80% of the world's most widely used vegetable oil comes from those two countries
with more than half of it planted on former tropical forests. Many forests have <a
href="http://www.buyshedsdirect.co.uk/">shed</a> huge areas of trees as a direct
result of this.

On the flip-side, Indonesia and Malaysia plan to use a lot of the palm capacity to
create a bio-diesel for transportation, which will create lots of jobs for the locals while
simultaneously reducing a trade imbalance that results from importing oil.

o Report this comment

o 2012-03-16 07:35:51 AM

o Posted by: Sam Grace

 #40134

One of the biggest drivers of forest loss in Malaysia and Indonesia is palm oil and over
80% of the world's most widely used vegetable oil comes from those two countries
with more than half of it planted on former tropical forests. Many forests have shed
huge areas of trees as a direct result of this.

On the flip-side, Indonesia and Malaysia plan to use a lot of the palm capacity to
create a bio-diesel for transportation, which will create lots of jobs for the locals while
simultaneously reducing a trade imbalance that results from importing oil.

o Report this comment

o 2012-03-16 07:37:03 AM

o Posted by: Sam Grace