It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
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 industrialization. In the 1980s and 1990s the forests of Borneo underwent a dramatic transition. They were leveled 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.