Thoughts: Borneo

The destruction of rain forest in Borneo is driven by two industries: logging and palm farming. The uses of felled trees are the obvious timber and paper pulp. Palm farming supports the palm oil industry. Palm oil has been used mainly for used for things like cooking and cosmetics, but is also the most productive biofuel crop in the world. The demands of those two industries have resulted in an estimated 20% of all Bornean rain forest being destroyed from 1985 to 2005.

The felling of those forests has dramatically reduced the habitats of many of the island's indigenous life, including humans. The Penan, the tribe that Dr. Brosius lived with, have been truly nomadic hunter-gatherers for as long as anyone in the tribe can remember. However, with the reduction in range, more and more of the Penan are being forced to settle. They face cultural extinction in precisely the same way that orangutans face biological extinction.

The solution most often proposed is to stop the destruction of the Bornean rain forest: protest, rally, demonstrate, and get laws enacted that once and for all prevent logging in Borneo. While this technically does help save those Bornean species that are endangered by the destruction, it's not enough. Criminalizing the deforestation of Borneo will simply increase deforestation in Java, Sumatra, Malaysia, and other nearby forests. The threat to biodiversity in Borneo is not the disease. It's merely a symptom: what we see on the surface.

Another proposed solution is to invest more in criminalizing illegal logging: encourage legislation on stricter boundaries and more stringent enforcement of existing laws. This would then guarantee the safety of protected areas such as Tanjung Puting. While a large portion of the logging done in Borneo is illegal, eliminating this would not fully solve the problem. Making it more difficult to illegally fell trees in Borneo would result in, for example, more lobbying by the timber and palm oil industries for concessions of protected land. Illegal logging is merely another symptom.

The only way to truly solve the problem is to address the disease itself: consumption. Demand for timber products and palm oil is ultimately responsible for the destruction of the Bornean rain forest. If the world's demand for timber and palm oil could economically and profitably be met without logging illegally in Borneo, you can rest assured there would be no illegal logging. If the world's demand could be met without logging in Borneo at all, then there wouldn't be any timber or palm oil companies there.

The destruction of rain forests and other habitats in the world occurs because you and I consume products that require the destruction of those habitats. Because you and I want to use cheap paper plates to avoid doing the dishes, there is an ever-increasing global demand for paper. Because you and I drive instead of walk, keep our entire house at 75 degrees in the summer when we're not home, and buy things that must be shipped from all over the world, there is an ever-increasing global demand for biofuels like palm oil.

Corporations are not to blame for the problem. There is no person sitting at the head of a multinational corporation, tapping his fingers together, Mr. Burns-like, who is bent on exterminating the orangutan. Businesses exist for one reason: to produce a profit by meeting demand. Were we, the consumers, to stop demanding their product, businesses that produce that product would cease to turn a profit, and would very quickly disappear.

No amount of legislation will save the world's rain forests, if the collective demand for paper and palm oil exceeds the amount of available non-forested land. We ought not feel helpless and look dumbly to government to save us, while we continue feeding the system that has wrought this destruction.

Changing the system doesn't require a catastrophe. It doesn't require anarchy, or bloodshed, or a return to stone age civilization. All it requires is reducing our consumption. If each of us individually takes the initiative and consumes less, worldwide demand for goods and services will go down. The newly-diminished demand will then no longer require the expansion of industries like logging and palm oil plantations.

I'm trying not to sound preachy, though I've probably failed. Reading over this, it looks the same as most of what you can find online about this. That's because most of it is the same. Go to sites like this, this, this, and this to see where I got most of my information.

Seeing the habitat destruction up-close, though, makes me look at it entirely differently. I used to feel the way most people do: the problems of deforestation and extinction of species are global, and we as individuals can't do anything about it. That's what makes the problem so sinister--the very people who are responsible for the problem are and are kept ignorant of their importance.

I've written this primarily to remind me how I felt after visiting Borneo, but also in the hopes that it makes someone else--anyone else--stop and think about it. The most common fate for people who dwell on global problems like these is depression ("there's nothing I can do") and frustration ("nobody else understands"). Those two can combine to stamp out any desire to change things. We need to stop waiting for someone else to do something for all of us, while we just keep going along with things the way they are. You must be the change you wish to see in the world. Find ways to consume less. I don't mean we should skip meals and stop showering. The overwhelming majority of consumption involves things that we don't need to survive.

Walk more, drive less, cook more, use less, recycle more, waste less--none of these are new ideas. In addition to these, try thinking of your own ways to consume less. It doesn't need to be an overnight change. In fact, it would probably do more harm than good to cut out every possible extra form of consumption all at once. Think of it as a diet. Not an I-need-to-look-good-in-my-bathing-suit or chicks-dig-a-sixpack diet, but a sensible diet. Remove aspects of the lifestyle you're getting away from, but do it slowly. Ease into the new lifestyle, allowing yourself time to adjust to each change. That way you're less likely to give it all up and go back to junk food.

This video makes some good points about the hidden costs of consumption. It's been around for a while, so a lot of folks have already seen it. If you haven't, give it a look.

I would love to discuss this with anyone who wants to--as you might have guessed, I've done a lot of thinking on the matter.