Borneo and Kalimantan: plantation expansion

Setting

Borneo is shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei. Kalimantan is the Indonesian part; Sabah and Sarawak are in Malaysia. The island-wide evidence below includes industrial oil-palm and pulpwood plantations. It must not be described as an Indonesian national total.

Sources: nature.com

Causes and processes

Demand for vegetable oil and wood products encourages plantation investment. Forest conversion can follow logging, fire and clearance, but some plantations occupy land cleared much earlier. The history of the land therefore matters when attributing deforestation.

Gaveau and colleagues used satellite images to study the time between forest clearance and plantation establishment. Their rapid-conversion category means planting within five years. It helps compare broad patterns; it cannot establish responsibility in every individual land dispute.

Sources: nature.com

Impacts and interests

Plantations can earn revenue and provide work, while forest conversion removes habitat and carbon-rich vegetation. Employers, workers, landholders and conservation groups have different interests in where expansion occurs. A plantation is a tree crop, but replacing a natural forest with one crop changes the range of habitats.

Smoke adds another environmental pressure. NASA imagery recorded peat-fire smoke over Kalimantan in September 2019. A satellite image can show fire and smoke, but it does not on its own prove who lit each fire or that every fire was associated with oil palm.

Sources: nature.com 1 · nasa.gov 2

Responses

IUCN's 2018 report recommended avoiding forest and peatland clearance, protecting remaining forest patches and making sustainability commitments more transparent. Planning and monitoring need to follow actual land use through time. A certification label alone cannot establish that every environmental impact has been avoided.

Sources: iucn.org

Evaluation

Compare plantation revenue and employment with forest loss, habitat and fire risk. A blanket switch to another vegetable oil can require more land because oil-palm yields are high. IUCN therefore emphasised preventing further deforestation.

Choose the correct period and boundary. Older island-wide totals help explain change over decades; they are not a current rate for Kalimantan. The satellite study also found different patterns in Indonesian and Malaysian Borneo.

Sources: iucn.org 1 · nature.com 2

Using this case in an answer

Explain plantation expansion, the sequence from forest to cleared land to planting, and the interests of producers, workers and conservation groups. Evaluate responses using forest, peatland and biodiversity evidence at the stated geographical scale.

• Kalimantan is Indonesian Borneo. Island-wide figures also include Malaysia and Brunei.
• Total forest clearance includes several causes. Plantation areas include oil palm and pulpwood; do not label every hectare as palm oil.