It’s starting to look alarmingly like the pursuit of biofuels will be the next poster child for the Law of Unintended Consequences – up there with thalidomide and turning cattle into cannibals. Borneo’s forests have been under siege for some time by the agricultural industry, transmigrants, and the mining industry.  Demands for "environmentally friendly" energy might just drive the last chainsaw to the last tree.  I’m starting to think these guys have a point.

Link: Environmental News Network.

Despite government claims pristine jungles are escaping the effects
of the "green solution" to the energy crunch, the boom is threatening
the survival of animals like the endangered orangutan and turning the
country into a major global warming contributor, environmentalists say…

…Palm oil
plantations have long been a staple of the economies of tropical
Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia. Oil made from the red, spiky
apple-sized fruit is used to make a vast range of products, from soap
to chocolate to lipstick.

But concern over pollution
from the burning of fossil fuels in Europe and the United States has
led to a new use for the oil – mixing it with diesel to make a cleaner
burning and cheaper fuel to put in cars.

The
EU parliament this year announced a renewed push to meet sustainable
energy targets, including mandating using biofuels to supply at least
10 percent of transport fuel needs by 2020.

Encouraged
by government tax breaks, many of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates as
well as foreign companies are investing millions in expanding
plantations and refining facilities on Borneo, which has one of the
richest ecosystems in the world and is one of the only remaining homes
of the orangutans.

Conservationists working to
preserve the 20,000 great apes say palm oil poses the biggest threat.
Rehabilitation centers are overflowing with the animals rescued from
plantations, many with wounds inflicted by workers, they say.

"Scientifically,
I think the population is doomed, but emotionally I want to feel like
there is still hope," said Raffaella Commitante, a primatologist at a
center in east Kalimantan. "Orangutans spend 80 to 90 percent of their
time in trees. If you take away the trees, they cannot move."

Deforestation
in tropical countries accounts for roughly 20 percent of greenhouse gas
emissions, according to the World Bank, because trees release carbon
dioxide, the main heat-trapping gas, when they are destroyed.

Indonesia
is the third-highest emitter of carbon dioxide behind China and the
United States, largely because much of the palm oil on Borneo is
planted on carbon-rich peat land that must be drained first, releasing
millions more tons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year.