Central Kalimantan, Indonesia - The Ruins Of What Was World's Biggest Peat Forest Rot And Burn

[hatrack]

A BOAT trip down the wide brown waters of the Kapuas River and the canals that flow off it, crisscrossing the hinterland of Central Kalimantan, makes for a depressing tour.

What was once one of the world's great swamp peat forests is a tangle of weeds and burnt trees. The rich peat, one of the world's great stores of carbon, is dry and crumbles at first touch, degraded each dry season by fires lit by local farmers. The mills along the banks of the Kapuas are testament to the ongoing illegal logging that is denuding the area of what trees remain.

Even a rare sighting of a female orangutan cradling her baby in a small grove of trees by one of the canals fails to enliven the mood. She hollers in distress and throws debris at the passing canoes as if to condemn their human cargo for the destruction.

EDIT

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/australia-in-bid-to-repair-ecological-ruin-20091213-kqil.html

[phantom power]

1. Rot and Burn

[wuvuj]

2. Humans...don't you just love the little shits?

...

[amborin]

3. read this in ny times a month or so ago...indonesia has horrid environmental record; root problem

is out of control demographic growth