Take The Path Less Ordinary

Who’s to be blamed?

While many in developed countries are whining about logging in poorer countries, most politicians and citizens in developed countries cannot imagine a life without the comfort of fuel guzzling cars (most homes have 2) and wood-based furnitures and items at home.

Yes, for most, conservation spells inconvenience.

In the past, people use washable cloth napkins to dry their hands after a visit to the loo but nowadays, people use paper napkins without batting an eyelid. In developed countries, people dine on solid wooden tables and chairs, sleep on beds with wooden frames and oh well, toilet paper is made from wood too. Can any parent imagine not getting colour pencils (yes, the shafts are made of wood) for their kids? Most pencils are thrown away as soon as they’re shorter that 3 inches. Wood has become a staple.

There are many subtle contributions to rainforest devastation that go un-noticed, apart from what we usually read in the news. When wastage in any form continues, industries will create ways to compensate. Everything is inter-related. When wastage and high-consumption occur in some part of the world, another part - usually less developed countries - will be strained to keep the supply coming.

Oil palm plantation - What job is there in the far flung countryside? Rural villages who are mostly uneducated can only rely on plantation employment to sustain and leviate their economical standings. When one is confronted with the question of livelihood and survival, deforestation usually takes the back seat.

Oil palm plantations are often the punching bag for activists. Yes, it is obvious that plantations are eating up vast tract of rainforest land in Malaysia. However, the hard fact is fossil fuel is drying out and biofuel is given as the answer. Can or will anyone stop driving, flying or sailing? As it is, 70% of world energy usage is derived from fossil fuel and nations around the world are fearing that petroluem producing countries (namely OPEC) are tightening supplies and use it as a tool to gain political mileage.

An aborigine chieftain once asked us, “Why can’t these high fuel consumption countries plant their own bio-fuel crops and leave our jungles alone ?“. Well, that’s a good food for thought.

Most locals have no love for oil palms. Malaysians only use a tiny fraction of biofuel and yet have to sacrifice millions of acres to feed worldwide consumption. Honestly, if oil palm is not used to produce biofuel, some other crops will be used, and we wickedly hope the alternative crops are planted in developed countries themselves. Then again, forests in that part of the world will be threatened and the problem is not solved, but shifted.

Oil palm’s fruit bunch - The most efficient among the oil crops, oil palm commands a yield of almost 10 times higher than that of soya bean, 6.9 times over sunflower seed and 6.3 times over rapeseed. This inadvertently pushed palm oil as the number one player in the oils and fats trade, seconded by soya bean

It’s either here or somewhere else

The world’s demand for oils and fats for the year 2000 was projected to be around 105 million tonnes. This could be satisfied by a mere 30 million hectares of oil palm, or otherwise individually by 189 million hectares of rapeseed, 209 million hectares of soya bean. That’s more destruction and clearing of forested land. Without question, hectare for hectare, oil palm is the most efficient. Besides fuelling automobiles, oil palm’s oleo chemical is also used as base for producing candles, shampoo, garment detergents, soap, cooking oil, chocolates, creamery for ice-creams, lipsticks …. etc.

Frankly, if oil palm production is shaved, surely some other fat producing crops like sunflower, corn, olive, teedseed … etc will likely take its place, and much more land has to be cleared.

Mother Nature is hitting back - hard

The problem is people are using too much fuel and indulging in too many items that are draining Mother Earth, be it fossil fuel, bio-fuel or wood based products.

To a certain extend, local authority’s inaction and land intrusion has caused vast tract of forest are being cut and replaced by fatty acid producing crops. Plantation sprawls are often expanded into hillsides, riverbanks and forest reserves indiscriminately. Finding these spots isn’t hard. All it takes are some good satellite pictures.

Here’s a good example. Borneo’s world-famous Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary has been reduced to a strip of forest fringing the Kinabatangan river …..

View Larger Map

Notice bald patches around the river. Boat riding tourists report seeing abundant of wildlife along Bilit / Sukau / Kinabatangan river banks but many don’t realise that animals are helplessly pushed to the riverbank’s forest strip when plantation ravaged their natural habitat. All tropical rainforest naturalists will tell you it’s almost impossible to see wildlife in daytime because 90% are nocturnal (active by night). When animals appear in daytime, they are desperate and have nowhere to hide

The loss of rainforest is already hitting back in full force. Flooding happens more frequently nowadays as there is less forested area to soak up rainfall, especially in urban areas and down river townships. Millions of Ringgit are spent every year for rebuilding and not forgetting lives lost to floods. Without the rainforest to soak up water and act as slow-releasing reservoir, costly dams have to be built to store rainfall. Worst still, rainclouds churned out by rainforests are getting lesser resulting prolonged dry spells. Without rainclouds, what use is a dam?

Whatever happens in far flung jungles does affect those living in town areas. Urbanites cannot afford to turn a blind eye on Mother Nature’s woes any longer.

Oh, let’s do replanting

Anyone who gives you that jazz don’t understand the rainforest ecology enough.

If someone argues that rainforest can be logged, burned and replanted to its original state, it’s a huge fallacy. At best, a systematic replanting management program can only regenerate selected trees, not the nitty gritty moss species, endemic palms, orchids or even ants colonies that make the rainforest complete. Some plants like vines has no spore, seed or flower. Botanists still scratch their heads when asked how these creepers propagate. Once destroyed, they are gone forever.

One of the distinctive feature of the Malaysian rainforest is it grows on ground with little nutrient. Millennia of weathering and torrential rains has left its top soil with little mineral content that’s important for botanical growth. Recent research papers indicate nutrients are found above the ground, mainly in rainforest’s biomass and on the forest floor’s decomposing litter with comprises of fallen leaves, barks, twigs, fruits, dead animals … etc. Plants intercept and absorb nutrients as soon as they are generated by decomposition hasten by termites, bacteria, fungi and various organisms. So, the rainforest makes its own food above the ground and merely needs the ground for anchoring.

Trail of destruction - Notice the orange coloured soil; it’s clay. Once a rainforest is uprooted, its nutrient poor clay soil cannot support replants

Once a rainforest is cleared, all nutrients that feed the ecosystem will be lost forever. What remains on the barren soil cannot support regrowth. This is why slash & burn agriculture and logging made very infertile land and growing new vegetation is difficult. The damage is permanent. Furthermore, with every tract of rainforest cut, mankind is bringing about the extinction of some species that we don’t even know about.

So, unless someone has a great plan on how to prevent rain from scrubbing top soil and a lot of money for fertilisers, re-planting will only work to a certain extend.

Who’s keeping tab

Thankfully, there are diligent non-governmental organizations like the Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) and WWF-Malaysia that seriously advocate nature conservation agenda in the country. The MNS publishes a bi-monthly magazine called “Malaysian Naturalist” which is highly informative and brimming with interesting anecdotes of local ecology and wildlife. We encourage all to help fund MNS’s conservation effort by signing up as a member and subscribing the magazine.

___________________________________________________________________________

Outdoor Education - Foreigners would be surprised to know that despite living in a tropical country, many Malaysians are brought up with very little knowledge about the jungle. Most kids would rather trip theme parks, shopping centers and other modern hooplas on weekends.

Nonetheless, on rare occasions, we manage to cajole some college students into the rainforest and convert them into future generation’s tree-huggers. Hopefully, these kids will grow up to become voters who will influence and give rise to a governmental system that is more conservation-ccentric.

Yes, there are many angry blogs in regards to deforestation. In contrast, we prefer the soft and educational approach. By linking urbanites with our informative and pictorial nature blog, we hope many would fall in love with our rainforest and inspire people around the globe see that one need not be rich, well-connected or tied to any organization to purvey conservation.

Everyone can reduce wastages in their little ways at home and start treating nature education as an integral part of personal enrichment.