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Borneo, the third largest island in the world, divided between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei, was once covered with dense rainforests, but along with its tropical lowland and highland forests, there has been extensive deforestation since the 1960s, as the native economies of the region experienced rapid industrialisation. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of Borneo underwent a dramatic transition. They were levelled at a rate unparalleled in human history, burned, logged and cleared, and commonly replaced with agricultural land, or palm oil plantations. Half of the annual global tropical timber acquisition currently comes from Borneo. Furthermore, palm oil plantations are rapidly encroaching on the last remnants of primary rainforest. Much of the forest clearance is illegal. The World Wildlife Fund divides Borneo into a number of distinct ecoregions including the Borneo lowland rain forests which cover most of the island, with an area of , the Borneo peat swamp forests, the ''Kerangas'' or Sundaland heath forests, the Southwest Borneo freshwater swamp forests, and the Sunda Shelf mangroves. The Borneo mountain rainforests lie in the central highlands of the island, above the elevation. These areas represent habitat for many endangered species, such as orangutans and elephants and rare endemics such as the elusive Hose's Civet. As well as Borneo's importance in biodiversity conservation and as a carbon sink, the forests have significance for water security and food sovereignty for local communities of indigenous peoples. ==Malaysian Borneo== The Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah (East Malaysia), in the north, occupy about 26% of the island. The forested area here shrank rapidly due to heavy logging for the Malaysian plywood industry. Two forestry researchers〔(Sabah Forestry Department ). Forest.sabah.gov.my. Retrieved on 22 January 2012.〕 of (Sepilok Research Centre ), Sandakan, Sabah in the early 1980s identified four fast-growing hardwoods and a breakthrough on seed collection and handling of Acacia mangium and Gmelina arborea, fast-growing tropical trees were planted on huge tract of formerly logged and deforested areas primarily in the northern part of Borneo Island. Indigenous peoples of Malaysia have been impacted by logging without their free, prior and informed consent in their ancestral forests. They have used peaceful demonstrations 〔 and social media advocacy to raise awareness of their rights to the forest, with some success. Questions about how and why logging licenses were granted without community consent remain unaddressed. The rainforest was also greatly destroyed from the forest fires of 1997 to 1998, which were started by the locals to clear the forests for crops and perpetuated by an exceptionally dry El Niño season during that period. During the great fire, hotspots could be seen on satellite images and the haze thus created affected the surrounding countries of Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore. In February 2008, the Malaysian government announced the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy plan to harvest the virgin hinterlands of Northern Borneo. Further deforestation and destruction of the biodiversity are anticipated in the wake of logging commissions, hydroelectric dams and other mining of minerals and resources. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Deforestation in Borneo」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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