The Land of the Orangutan and Bird of Paradise Under Threat

Abstract

This chapter addresses the issue of deforestation in Indonesia and its effects on wildlife and people. It takes as a starting point the descriptions by Alfred Wallace (1869) of the Malay archipelago and then discuss the history of deforestation in Indonesia. The focus of the article is on the giant scale of tropical deforestation in Indonesia, which goes faster then anywhere else in the world. Illegal logging and land conversion for oil palm and paper production are the main causes of deforestation on the large islands of Sumatra, Borneo and New Guinea. The article also contains a case study of timber smuggling from Indonesian to Malaysian Borneo, based on a visit in 2005. Deforestation obviously has a negative impact on the wildlife populations, such as tiger and orangutan. While the situation looks grim for the Sumatran tiger and orangutan, the example of the once threatened bird of paradise may serve as an example for further wildlife conservation.